In this article, I will guide you to create a dependency list in Excel. The dependency list should look like this:

User selects Pizza from list 1.

As a result the second list will contain Pizza items.

How to create a dependency list in Excel

1. On the second sheet, create the named regions as follows.

Name	Range Address
Food	A1:A3
Pizza	B1:B4
Pancakes	C1:C2
Chinese	D1:D3

2. On the first sheet, select cell B1.

3. On the Data tab, in the Data Tools group, click Data Validation.

4. In Allow, click Custom.

5. Click the Source box and enter =Food.

6. Click OK.

Result:

7. Next, select cell E1.

8. In Allow, click Custom.

9. Click Source and enter =INDIRECT($B$1).

10. Click OK.

Result:

Explain:

• The INDIRECT function returns the reference specified by a text string.
• For example, the user selects Chinese from the first drop-down list. =INDIRECT($B$1) will return the Chinese reference.
• Therefore, the second drop-down list contains the contents Chinese.

In addition, you can also view many other excel articles here.