Phantom Drop down boxes in excel 2016

Anonymous
2016-01-14T14:47:08+00:00

I use lots of data validation drop down list and recently some phantom boxes have been appearing in my spreadsheets.  You can select the grey arrow but the list is empty.  You then select the cell to get the correct data validation list, which appears to overlay the the box.  Can anyone help?  I created a new spreadsheet from scratch and it appeared to have fixed it but today i opened the spreadsheet and once again i have phantom drop down lists!!!

I removed all the data validation from the cell and it still remained!

Can anyone help?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

70 answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2016-02-21T19:53:29+00:00

    We are having the same phantom problem.  has anyone found a fix yet?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2016-02-17T20:23:56+00:00

    Did you mean to say "...and strangely you can't delete..."? If so, then I follow you.

    On one sheet (and only one sheet) I was able to push the phantom drop-down to the right far enough so it would land in a hidden column. On another sheet, the phantom drop-down wouldn't move when I inserted cells to the left of the affected cell.

    You'll be sending this to the developers to fix, correct? Thanks, Thao!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2016-02-17T19:57:01+00:00

    For dropdown control created by cell validation (ie pivottable filter, tables, or any features) you cannot modify the dropdown controls.  From your comment above about having 'valid drop-down' I thought you have custom drop down control and did not want the provided temp solution to accidentally delete them.

    If you attempt to delete what looks like a dropdown control from a feature that displayed them, Excel will not allow you to delete them.  Cell validation is a legacy feature and strangely you can delete the dropdown control.  Even if you deleted the cell validation's dropdown control, save the workbook, then open the workbook, the cell validation dropdown will be restored.

    Thanks

    Thao Moua (Excel Desktop)

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2016-02-17T19:24:37+00:00

    OK, but how can I do that for drop downs created by setting cell validation to "List"? I don't see where I have control over their names. Thanks!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2016-02-17T19:12:04+00:00

    An alternative is to give all your drop down controls custom names instead of the default name 'Drop Down XX'.  This will seem like a lot of work at first but it will be more sustainable then having to reply to all the msgbox every time you want to clean up things.

    Thanks

    Thao Moua (Excel Desktop)

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments