Try this.

Sort your validation list and at the beginning of the A's enter a single A,
do the same for the beginning of the B's and all the way through to the Z's.

Click in the cell that has the drop down validation and type in the letter
of the list you desire... say you type in an O. DO NOT hit enter... leave
the cell in the edit mode (still selected) and now hit your down arrow.

Should take you to the O which is the top of the O list of selections.

HTH
Regards,
Howard

"Ryan" wrote in message
...
I have a list of 1000s of items and i want the same formula that was used
to
make the formula autocomplete. I want to start typing and a list drops
down
of all the avaliable options. Like if in my list is apple and appricot i
want to type a and both of them appear in a list. It is for my squadron
commander and i cant figure it out. Any help is much appreciated.