MS Excel: Set up a cell to only allow 10 characters in Excel 2011 for Mac
Question: In Excel 2011 for Mac, I want to set up a cell to only allow 10 characters. How can I do this?
Answer: Select the cells that you wish to restrict to a certain number of characters. In this example, we've selected cells A2 to A5.
Select the Data tab in the toolbar at the top of the screen. Then in the Data Tools group, click on the Data Validation drop-down and select Data Validation.
When the Data Validation window appears, set up your criteria. In this example, we've setup the cells to allow a text equal to 10.
Next, click on the Error Alert tab.
Enter an Error message to appear when data entered does not conform to the validation rules.
Now if a value is entered in one of those cells that is NOT equal to 10 characters, the following error message will appear:
