Product Codes in Excel - Easy Excel Tutorial http://www.excel-easy.com/examples/product-codes.

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Product Codes
This example teaches you how to use data validation to prevent users from entering incorrect product codes.
Chapter
1. Select the range A2:A7.
Data Validation

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Reject Invalid Dates

Budget Limit

Prevent Duplicate Entries

Product Codes

Drop-down List
2. On the Data tab, click Data Validation.

Dependent Drop-down Lists

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product-codes.xls

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Product Codes in Excel - Easy Excel Tutorial http://www.excel-easy.com/examples/product-codes.html

3. In the Allow list, click Custom.

4. In the Formula box, enter the formula shown below and click OK.

Explanation: this AND function has three arguments. LEFT(A2)="C" forces the user to start with the letter C.
LEN(A2)=4 forces the user to enter a string with a length of 4 characters. ISNUMBER(VALUE(RIGHT(A2,3)))
forces the user to end with 3 numbers. RIGHT(A2,3) extracts the 3 rightmost characters from the text string. The

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Product Codes in Excel - Easy Excel Tutorial http://www.excel-easy.com/examples/product-codes.html

VALUE function converts this text string to a number. ISNUMBER checks whether this value is a number. The
AND Function returns TRUE if all conditions are true. Because we selected the range A2:A7 before we clicked on
Data Validation, Excel automatically copies the formula to the other cells.

5. To check this, select cell A3 and click Data Validation.

As you can see, this cell also contains the correct formula.

6. Enter an incorrect product code.

Result. Excel shows an error alert.

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Product Codes in Excel - Easy Excel Tutorial http://www.excel-easy.com/examples/product-codes.html

Note: to enter an input message and error alert message, go to the Input Message and Error Alert tab.

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Product Codes in Excel - Easy Excel Tutorial http://www.excel-easy.com/examples/product-codes.html

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