In a recent consulting assignment I had a tricky data validation problem. The customer wanted to have an either-or condition in the data validation, like this:
My initial reaction to this requirement was “hmm… that is not possible“. But before shooting the email back to client, I got curious and checked if excel data validation can actually do this. And of course we can do this in Excel with ease.
First see the demo of how this would work:
Now to the specifics:
- Select both cells where you want this data validation to be applied.
- Now go to data validation (Data Ribbon > Data Validation or Data Menu > Validation)
- Specify validation type as “Custom” and use a formula like COUNTA() to check count of cells with a value (see the illustration)
- Optional: Use Error Message settings to set a message you prefer.
- That is all. Now your Either Or Data Validation set up is done.
Download the example file:
Click here to download the example file with this kind of data validation setup. Play with it and learn how to do this on your own.
Learn more about Data Validation in Excel:
Read more about adding a drop down list validation or advanced data validation tricks or all of them.
Related: Writing XOR (either or) formulas in Excel
11 Responses to “Use Alt+Enter to get multiple lines in a cell [spreadcheats]”
@Chandoo:
One more useful trick.......
In a column you have no. of data in rows and need to copy in the next row from the previous row, no need to go for the previous rows but entering Alt + down arrow, you will get the list of data, (in asending order), entered in the previous rows...
This is another great tip. I use this all the time to make sense of some *very* long formulas. As soon as the formula is debugged I remove the break.
Great tip Chandoo!
I use this feature often and it has even gotten the, "how did you do that" response.
Thanks!
@Ketan: Alt+down arrow is an awesome tip. I never knew it and now I am using it everyday.
@Jorge, Tony: Agree... 🙂
[...] Day 1: Insert Line Breaks in a Cell [...]
how can we merge a two sheet.
excellent idea. Chandoo you are genious
Hi chandoo,
I have used ctrl+enter to break the cell. But I did not get the result.
Please tell me how can i break the cell in multiple lines.
Hi, Ranveer,
Its not Ctrl+enter to break the cell, use Alt+Enter to make it happen.
hi Chandoo....
how we can use Alt+Enter in multiple rows at the same time please reply hurry i have lot of work and have no time and i m stuck in this. 🙁
Alt+J worked once 🙁
So I found another more reliable way:
=SUBSTITUTE(A2,CHAR(13),"")
Where A2 is the cell that contains the line breaks which the code for it is CHAR(13). It will replace it with whatever inside the ""