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Lesson 71 of 104 3 min Updated Completed

How to Make a Weekly Meal Planner

In this lesson, you’ll build a weekly meal planner from scratch. Each meal cell has a drop-down list, so planning the week takes a few clicks.

  1. On Sheet2, list your meal ideas and create three named ranges: B3:B15 as Breakfast, C3:C15 as Lunch, and D3:D15 as Dinner.

    Three lists of meals named Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

  2. On Sheet1, select cell C5, and on the Data tab, click Data Validation.

    The Data Validation button on the Data tab

  3. Under Allow, choose List. In Source, type =Breakfast.

    The source =Breakfast in the Data Validation dialog box

  4. Click OK. C5 now has a drop-down list of breakfasts.

    The breakfast drop-down list in C5

  5. Repeat steps 2 to 4 for D5 (=Lunch) and E5 (=Dinner).

  6. Select C5:E5 and drag the fill handle down to row 11, one row for each day.

    Copying the drop-down lists down for each day

  7. Click any cell in C5:E11. Each one shows the right list of meals.

    A drop-down list in the weekly planner

  8. Finish with formatting. Untick Gridlines on the View tab, and add font sizes, fills and borders as you like.

    The finished weekly meal planner

Download the template to compare: excel-meal-chart.xls