Navigate Excel Drop-Down List via Keyboard

Question

I've created a List of employees and applied a drop-down menu to a number of cells.

I've already found the helpful Alt+Down arrow tip to allow me to enter the drop-down via the keyboard.

However, I don't seem to be able to select an entry from the list via the keyboard.

i.e. I'd like to be able to start typing an employee's name to select from the list, as opposed to navigating the list with the mouse and select the appropriate employee.

Answer 1

Someone suggested this simple workaround on another thread, which I put to use and it's great. Depending on where you're placing your drop-downs, it may be too messy for your worksheet, but worth a try.

You know how Excel will auto-complete if you've already typed the word in a cell above? You can put that feature to use by doing this: Pretend you have 100 employees and you'll be drawing from those names in drop-down boxes in columns C and D. At line 1, insert 100 lines. Drop your employee names into columns C and D. Then hide those lines. (Your top row under the header will now be line 101.) Now when you start typing a name in Column C or D, auto-complete will go to work. :)

If you have the header row "frozen": I found this to create a problem, so I had to unfreeze the top row first. Don't forget to freeze your top row after hiding your lines.

Hiding Lines Path is: Home-> Format-> Hide and Unhide -> Hide Rows.

Do not use: Home-> View-> Hide, as this hides the entire window.

Answer 2

Alt + down_arrow to open the data validation drop down.

Then down-arrow / up_arrow or page_down / page_up to navigate the drop down choices.

Enter to select the highlighted option.

That's how it works for me with Excel 2010 and 2013. Have not tested other versions.

Answer 3

From @TimWilliams: http://www.contextures.com/xlDataVal10.html

Turns out Data Validation doesn't have an AutoComplete feature.

See The magical floating ActiveX control for a workaround.