I've been using drop downs in Excel for years, I didn't think it was such a secret. The irritating thing about data validation is that it does not support auto-fill (type-ahead). One would hope and expect that as you start to type in the cell it would jump to the most similar word on the list and offer that, as an alternative to clicking on the drop down arrow. Most times auto-fill would be much quicker, especially if you know most of the options on your list. Mine (Office XP) doesn't do that, so if anyone can tell me how, then that WOULD be a breakthrough.