Excel drop-down list question....?

Question

So I've made my drop-down list and it works fine, I just want to fine tune it, but not sure if what I want to do is even possible...

When I roll my mouse over the field that contains the drop-down list, the graphic arrow appears, and then I can click on that to reveal my list. Is there a way to make that arrow show up permanently, so that I don't have to investigate each and every cell to see if it has a drop-down list? I just want to be able to look at my page and easily see what boxes are drop-down lists.

The second question: can I change the size of the drop-down list so that I don't have a scroll bar on the right side of the list, and so that all my options so up without having to scroll to them?

Thanks in advance for any answers. Have a wonderful 2008!

Answer 1

I believe the first answerer is right. I don't think you can for a validation list. However for a combo box dropdown you can. The combo box dropdown can be inserted from the control toolbox menu. However, they are a little more complicated to understand and it is a good idea to know a little about VBA programming if you use them. To change the number of rows that are displayed in a combo box just change the value for the ListRows property in the Properties Window to however many rows you want displayed. If more entries than that are used a scroll menu will be used to display the rest. By default, the ListRows property is usually set to 8.

Answer 2

Unfortunately it can't be done with a Validation list, you would have to use a ComboBox from either the "Control Toolbox" toolbar.

This link provides a great tutorial of Excel - Data Validation - Combo box
http://www.contextures.com/xlDataVal10.html

Best of luck and Happy New Year!