Navigate Excel Drop-Down List via Keyboard

Question

I've made a list of the employees and given several cells a drop-down menu. I've already found the helpful Alt+Down arrow tip to allow me to enter the drop-down via the keyboard.

However, it doesn't look as though I can use the keyboard to choose an item from the list.

For example, I'd prefer to be able to start typing an employee's name to choose from the list rather than using the mouse to scroll through the employees and choose the right one.

Answer 1

You are aware of the auto-complete feature Excel has when a word is previously written in a cell above? This is how you can use that feature: Assume that the names in the drop-down boxes in columns C and D are those of your 100 employees, from which you will be selecting. Add 100 lines beginning at line 1. Enter the names of your employees in columns C and D. Next, cover those lines. Line 101 is now in the top row below the header. Now, auto-complete will start working when you begin typing a name in Column C or D.

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.