Combining Fixed Text in a single cell?

I have about 20 choices I'd like a user to select from and have the text output to a single cell.

Sounds simple, right? Just create a Data Validation List? Yeah, but that only allows you to select ONE of the items in the list -- I want to select as few as zero and as many as all 20, combining the resulting text into a single string - space or comma delimited.

My first thought was checkboxes, but all I can seem to figure out is how to get ONE of the results into the cell, meaning I'm better off with the Data Validation List because it's easier.

Especially since I need to repeat this for as many as 200 or 300 lines, I'm wide open for any ideas.

Do you have an example of what you have?

Originally Posted by San

Do you have an example of what you have?

Hi, San...

Not sure what you mean by a "sample"... Here's hopefully a better explanation of what I want to do:

Rather than have, say 20 columns wide with a simple "Yes/No" under each (because there'd be close to 200 columns), I'd like 5 columns with a set of 20 checkboxes in each. The selections of each checkbox can be anything like "Choice 1", "Choice 2", etc...

The result should be something like "Choice 1, Choice 3, Choice 17"

Appreciate the interest...

Hi, Shg...

Listen, I'm WIDE open to suggestions - I did explain my goal in the prior response to Sag... I want a user to select from a list of about 20 choices - as few as zero and as many as all 20 -- then combine the text from each choice into a string to occupy a single cell.

<sigh> I can see this is going to be hard to explain. Sorry I'm not doing a better job at this, but I appreciate your patience...

If I have 20 selections, that could be 20 columns if I don't figure out a way to put it all in a single column. If I have 10 sets of those, that's 200.

So, let's forget the 200 columns for right now and just focus on the 20, OK?

Attached is a spreadsheet with an example of what I'm talking about. The columns I want to consolidate are F through I, K-N, P-AI, and AL-BE...

The file is XLS just for portability - I'm using Office 2007.

Am I getting closer?

Hi, Phil_V --

Yeah, I was hoping to "minimize my example"

Yes, the empty table really represents the way I would do this if I were doing discrete columns... I simply put a Data Validation List for "Yes" or "No" in each box. I'm really struggling with trying to represent what I want to do...

If I have 3 columns, Wiz, Bang, and Cheezy, and the choice is to either mark the row "Yes", mark the row "No", or leave it blank - with "No" or "Blank" being essentially the same...

Row 1 selects nothing
Row 2 selects Wiz and Bang
Row 3 selects Wiz and Cheezy
Row 4 selects all only Cheezy
Row 5 selects all 3 columns

The results should be, in a single cell:

<blank>
Wiz Bang
Wiz Cheezy
Cheezy
Wiz Bang Cheezy

Is this making ANY more sense?

How about doing this with a formula like "=IF(A2="YES", A1,"") & IF(B2="YES", B1,"")...and so on" of course this is if you have small number of column and you would like to copy the formula to all the result column.

Else we could do the same with the VBA code with similar statement as above.

Sounds like the beginning of an idea to combine the outputs, Kalyan... But I was hoping to also minimize the inputs by using checkboxes or something like that rather than have someone scroll across all those columns.

It's just possible that Excel is the wrong tool for what I want to do?

Hmm..seems like you could use VBA to create a form for some one to fill up [Here you may use check box ] and the result you may log in the excel sheet. This way you won't have to scroll thru the columns, as you would be able to display one row in a single form.

It would be easy if you could post a file with input and expected out put...