How Do I Build an Excel Yes/No Drop-Down? (Simple Ways)

The Excel drop-down menu feature is quite helpful while entering data.

You can use it to make a drop-down menu that will display all the pre-populated options for you to select from in a cell.

Selecting from the list rather than manually inputting the information saves time and helps you prevent mistakes like misspelled terms.

A Yes and No drop-down list is one such drop-down list that is frequently required. You may easily decide whether to enter the value yes or no in a cell by selecting it from the drop-down list after creating this Yes/No drop-down list.

I’ll demonstrate two quick methods for making an Excel Yes/No drop-down list in this tutorial.

This instruction explains:

Create a Yes/ or No Drop Down List by Manually Entering the Values.
Using a Cell Range, Produce a Yes/No Drop Down List
The Yes/No Drop-down Lists should be copied and pasted.
How Can we edit the Yes/No Drop-Down Lists

Create a Yes Or No Drop Down List by Manually Entering of the Values:

The simplest way to construct a Yes No drop-down list in the data validation option is to manually enter the values that you wish to see in the drop-down.

I want to build a Yes-No drop-down list in column B so that I can choose if the person has finished the training from the drop-down. Below, I have a data set of names in column A.

The procedures are as follows:

1. Choose the cell or range of cells from which you wish this drop-down to appear.

2. Choose the “Data” tab.

3. Click on the “Data Validation” icon in the “Data Tools” group.

4. Click on the ‘Allow’ drop-down menu located in the ‘Settings’ tab of the Data Validation dialogue box that appears.

5. Decide on the “List” option.

6. In the ‘Source:’ (field), enter the following:

Yes, No

7. Hit “OK”

The aforementioned actions would produce a Yes-No dropdown menu in the chosen cells (you should see a small drop-down icon when the cell is selected).

Click the drop-down icon, then choose the desired choice to display these options in the cell and ask if you want to reveal them or not.

If you want to display the drop-down menu in the chosen cells, you can use the shortcut ALT + Down Arrow Key (you need to hold the alt key and then press the down arrow key).

You can only enter Yes or No after you have built the drop-down list in a cell. If you attempted to accomplish that, an error box as follows would appear:

The drop-down values in this method are hard-coded, so if you want to change the drop-options, down’s you’ll need to return to the data Validation dialogue box and make the adjustments there.

Pro Tip:

After choosing the cells where you want the drop-down to appear, use the following keyboard shortcut to launch the data validation dialogue box: (Press these keys one at a time: Alt + A + V + V.)

Using a Cell Range, Produce a Yes/No Drop Down List:

The Yes/No values in the data validation dialogue box were hard-coded in the aforementioned manner.

Another method for doing this is to enter the values you desired in the drop-down in a cell, and then create the drop-down by using the source values from these cells.

The advantage of doing this is that it makes your drop-down list dynamic, meaning that the values in the drop-down would change automatically if you changed the values in the cells that I used to generate it.

The same data set is presented here, and I’ve added Yes and No in two cells (D 2 and D 3) in addition to creating the yes/no drop down selection in column B:

Here are the steps to build a drop-down menu from cell values:

Choose the cell or range of cells from which you wish this drop-down to appear.
Go to the Data tab.
In the “Data Tools” group, select the “Data Validation” icon.
Click on the Allows drop-down menu located in the ‘Settings’ tab of the Data Validation dialogue box that appears.
Choose List from the menu.

6. Click the range selection icon in the Source field.

Choose the cells that contain a Yes/No value. The ‘Source’ field would automatically contain a reference to these cells.

8. Press “OK”

The values we chose as the source would be used in the aforementioned steps to generate the drop-down list in the selected cells.

While this produces the identical outcome as the previous way, it has the advantage that drop-down values will immediately update if the values in the source cells change.

Use the Yes/No Drop-down Lists by Copying and Pasting

Similar to how cell formatting or cell color may be copied, so can drop-down lists.

Therefore, rather than going through the steps I’ve shown in the previous methods, you can just copy the cell that already has the drop-down list and paste it over the cells where you want it if you already have a yes-no drop down list in it and want to create one in another cell or another range of cells.

Making Changes to the Yes/No Drop-Down Lists

Open the data validation dialogue box and make the necessary modifications there if you wish to modify the drop-down values or the already-entered values.

For instance, you will need to return to the data validation dialogue box to make these adjustments if you made a spelling mistake or if you wish to modify the source of the cells from which the dropdown values are taken.

I demonstrated how to make a straightforward Yes/No drop-down list in Excel in this brief lesson.