By default, the 'Ignore blank' checkbox is checked, but you can force a user to enter a value by removing the checkmark. If the quantity is zero, then you might want users to enter 0 instead of nothing. For instance, if you have a quantity column, you might not want a blank cell. You might want to force users to enter at least some kind of value. The formula will execute when a user enters data to validate that the value matches the formula's restrictions. You can also customize the input that you will allow by selecting the 'Custom' option.Ĭhoosing the 'Custom' option displays a formula text box where you enter your own formula. You can restrict input to whole numbers, time, text length, decimal, date or list. By default, any value can be entered into a cell, but you can change this by clicking the dropdown and viewing the list of options.

The 'Settings' tab is the one that displays by default. This window has three tabs where you configure the data validation when input is entered into a cell. The first one is the data validation option, so click this item from the dropdown list to open a configuration window. The data validation button has an arrow on the right of it that displays a dropdown with a list of options. The tools do not have textual labels, so you must hover your mouse over each button to find the data validation tool. In the 'Data' menu tab, The data validation button can be found in the 'Data Tools' section. Data ValidationĮxcel has three types of data validation. These tools will block other formats and reduce the number of mistakes made when you rely on others to enter the right type of data into a record.

You can control the type of data entered into a cell by using Excel's data validation tools.

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