Forms are great for when you want to email a spread sheet to other people and they will complete a form and send the spread sheet back to you. A dropdown will allow someone to select from a list of choices then the number of the item in the list is returned.
So if your list is the following:
- HR
- Finance
- Marketing
- IT
When HR is selected then the number 1 is returned, finance then number 2, marketing the number 3 and IT the number 4. These numbers are placed within the cell of your choice; it is linked to the dropdown.
To add this dropdown to your spread sheet you need to add the developer tab to the ribbon. You will be able to see the forms buttons and add the dropdown to the spread sheet. When you right mouse click you can change the options for the dropdown. Set the cell that the dropdown is linked to and whether the field can be printed and more.
If you want the information from the spread sheet to be added to a row of data you can use a macro to add to a dataset either within that workbook or another workbook. Then if you would like to change the number that the dropdown returns to be text then use the match function.