How to add data to a ComboBox control or a ListBox control in Excel or Word

This article describes methods of populating a ComboBox or ListBox control.

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Method 1: How to Link a Combo Box or List Box to Cells on an Excel Worksheet

1. Create a new workbook in Microsoft Excel. On Sheet1, type the following:

         A1: One     B1: Red
         A2: Two     B2: Green
         A3: Three   B3: Yellow
         A4: Four    B4: Blue
   					

2. Press ALT+F11 to start the Microsoft Excel Visual Basic Editor.
3. On the Insert menu, click UserForm.
4. Create a ComboBox control and a ListBox control on the user form.
5. If the Properties window is not visible, click Properties Window on the View menu.
6. Click the ComboBox and scroll to RowSource in the Properties window.
   
   The window is divided into two sections. The left section contains the name of the property for the control. The right section contains the value of the property. Click in the right section of RowSource and type "sheet1!a1:a4" (without the quotation marks).
7. Click the ListBox and scroll to RowSource in the Properties window. Click in the right section of RowSource and type "sheet1!b1:b4" (without the quotation marks).
   
   NOTE: If you omit the sheet reference, the ComboBox and ListBox controls are populated with the data from the cells from the worksheet that is active when you run the user form. To ensure that the data from the same worksheet is always used to populate the user form, include the sheet reference as shown in the examples. To populate the user form with data from the active sheet, do not include the sheet reference in the RowSource. When you do this, the macro uses data from the active sheet to populate the user form.
8. Run the user form by clicking Run and then clicking Run Sub/UserForm.

One, Two, Three, and Four appear in the ComboBox control; and Red, Green, Yellow, and Blue appear in the ListBox control.

Methdod 2: How to Use a Visual Basic Macro to Populate a Combo Box or List Box

1. Open a Microsoft Office Application such as Microsoft Excel or Word.
2. Press ALT+F11 to start the Visual Basic Editor.
3. On the Insert menu, click UserForm.
4. Create a ComboBox and a ListBox control on the user form.
5. Right-click the user form and click View Code. The Code window for the user form appears. Click Initialize in the Procedure list (on the right side).
   
   The first and last lines of the subroutine are automatically entered, and the insertion point is automatically placed between these two lines.
6. Type the following code:

         ListBox1.List = Array("One", "Two", "Three", "Four")
         ComboBox1.List = Array("Red", "Green", "Yellow", "Blue")
   						

   This code should appear between the lines "Sub UserForm_Initialize()" and "End Sub".
7. On the Run menu, click Run Sub/UserForm to run the user form.

One, Two, Three, and Four appear in the ListBox control; and Red, Green, Yellow, and Blue appear in the ComboBox control.

For more information about user forms, click the Index tab in Microsoft Visual Basic Help, type the following text: and then double-click the selected text to go to the "UserForm Object" topic.