Data Validation Allow Particular Numbers & Specific Length

If you are required to add particular numbers with specific length in a range then you can make use of data validation. In this article, we will focus on extensive use of data validation custom feature to allow user to enter only x length & specific numbers and not all of them.

Question: I am using data validation, but I’m not able to help myself as my request is a little hard. I want excel to allow up to 5 digits & the digits that should be allowed are only 1,2,3,4,5,6 which implies 0,7,8,9 should not be allowed. In case user enters more than 5 digits or user enter any of the non-allowed digits, then excel must notify user with an alert message.

The functions we are going to use are AND, ISNUMBER, LEN, ISERROR & FIND.

We need to follow the below steps:

Select the range where we want to apply data validation (A1:D10 in our example)

Press ALT + D + L to open Data Validation box

Select Custom

In Formula box, enter the formula as

=AND(ISNUMBER(--A1),LEN(A1)<6,ISERROR(FIND("0",A1)),ISERROR(FIND("7",A1)),ISERROR(FIND("8",A1)),ISERROR(FIND("9",A1)))

The entire formula is not visible; in order to check, you can use mouse cursor; do not use keyboard arrows, this will cause error in formula
Click on Ok button

Conclusion: In this way, we can use data validation to allow user to enter specific numbers with specific length.

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