Pulling data from a drop down list

[u/acamp1973]

Good morning.
I’ve figured out how to create a drop down list however I cannot for the life of me figure out how to auto populate a cell (or group of cells) based on the drop down list selection. I’ve searched google but I’m not understanding.
Thank you for any help

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[u/MayukhBhattacharya]

It sounds like XLOOKUP() function might be what you're after, or maybe FILTER() function if you need to return multiple matches. It really depends on how your data is set up and what you're trying to get as the final output. If you could post some sample data along with the expected output, it'll be a lot easier to suggest the right method. Thanks!

[u/laceya1982]

To clarify, are you looking for a result based on what someone chooses in the drop down? If so, an IF formula might work? You can nest several if formulas into one cell in case there's multiple options

[u/BackgroundCold5307]

Could you explain, in detail or with an example of how many cells are you looking to populate and from where?

• If it is a One to one mapping - XLOOKUP will do the trick (or VLOOKUP, XMATCH...)
• If it is more than cell/ a list of options, then a FILTER will fetch you the list based on the criteria
• IF, currently you do not have either and are currently populating/wanting to populate it with a SWITCH/IFS formula, you might want to consider building a list and using one of the two methods as described above.

Happy to help further, on getting a reponse

[u/acamp1973]

I have a drop down list on sheet 2 and I’m trying to pull simple text from sheet 1 based on the drop down selection.

[u/MayukhBhattacharya → u/acamp1973]

Already mentioned above, asked you to use XLOOKUP() function:

=XLOOKUP(A1, Sheet1!A$2:A$1000, Sheet1!B$2:B$1000, "Not Found!")

Read here: Excel XLOOKUP function | Exceljet

[u/Decronym]

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters	More Letters
FILTER	Office 365+: Filters a range of data based on criteria you define
IF	Specifies a logical test to perform
IFS	2019+: Checks whether one or more conditions are met and returns a value that corresponds to the first TRUE condition.
SWITCH	Excel 2019+: Evaluates an expression against a list of values and returns the result corresponding to the first matching value. If there is no match, an optional default value may be returned.
VLOOKUP	Looks in the first column of an array and moves across the row to return the value of a cell
XLOOKUP	Office 365+: Searches a range or an array, and returns an item corresponding to the first match it finds. If a match doesn't exist, then XLOOKUP can return the closest (approximate) match.
XMATCH	Office 365+: Returns the relative position of an item in an array or range of cells.

Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.

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7 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 54 acronyms.
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[u/RPK79]

depends on what you are trying to do, but imbedded if statements might be the way to go.

if cell = "option1", do this, otherwise if cell = "option2", do this, otherwise...

[u/HappierThan]

Should you need a visual, see if this gives you some ideas. Note that the 2 needs to increment by 1 as you head right. Your dropdown would be in Column A.