Excel: How to Create a Drop Down List with Color

Often you may want to create a dropdown list in Excel with colors.

The following step-by-step example shows how to do so.

Step 1: Create Data

Suppose we have data in Excel on the number of points scored by a basketball player on a particular team and we would like to assign a rating of Good, OK, or Bad to the player:

Step 2: Define Dropdown List Options

Next, type Good, OK and Bad in the range F1:F3:

These will be used in the next step as the potential options that can be selected in the dropdown list.

Step 3: Create Dropdown List

Next, select cell C2, then click the Data tab along the top ribbon, then click the Data Validation icon within the Data Tools group:

In the new box that appears, select List from the Allow dropdown menu, then select F1:F3 for the Source:

Once you click OK, a dropdown list will automatically be added to cell C2 with Good, OK and Bad as the potential options.

Step 4: Add Colors to Dropdown List

Next, with cell C2 selected, click the Conditional Formatting icon on the Home tab along the top ribbon, then click New Rule:

In the new box that appears, click Format only cells that contain, then choose Specific Text under the Rule Description box, then choose =$F$1.

Then click the Format icon and choose a fill color to use. We will choose green:

Once you click OK, the “Good” option will be filled with a green background when it is selected from the dropdown list:

Excel drop down list with colors

We can repeat this same process to specify a yellow background to be used when “OK” is selected:

And we can repeat the process again to specify a red background to be used when “Bad” is selected:

We have now successfully added colors to our dropdown list.

Note: If you click the Conditional Formatting icon on the Home tab and then click Manage Rules, you will be able to see all of the conditional formatting rules you have created: