Easy Steps to Add a Checkbox in Excel [Step-By-Step]

How to insert checkbox in

Adding checkboxes in Excel makes your sheets more actionable, interactive, and also helps you convert them into a to-do list if required. In this tutorial, we’ll learn how you can add a checkbox to your Excel sheet. Let’s get started.

Also read: [Step-by-Step] How to Add Bullet Points in Excel

Steps to Add a Checkbox in Excel

Without any further ado, let’s get started on inserting a checkbox in Excel.

1. Adding Developer tab in Excel ribbon

First, we need to add the developer tab in the Excel ribbon to access the checkbox functionality. Follow the steps below to add the same:

  • Right-click on any one of the tabs. Select Customize the Ribbon… from the options that appear.
customize the ribbon
  • On the right side of the Excel Options dialog box, under the Customize the Ribbon: option, check the Developer option and click on OK.
Excel Options 1
  • Now, the Developer tab appears as one of the tabs in the Excel ribbon. You can now access a variety of interactive controls from the Developer tab.
developer tab in the ribbon

2. Inserting a checkbox in Excel

Let us consider a shopping list in which we want to add checkboxes to indicate that we have bought the item or not.

Add a Checkbox in Excel

Follow these steps to insert a checkbox in Excel:

  • Click on the Insert option in the Controls group present on the Developer tab.
Add a Checkbox in Excel
  • From the options that appear click on the checkbox graphic present under the Forms Control.
checkbox option 1
  • Select the cell where you want to add the check box. the check box appears but it is not exactly present completely inside the cell.
checkbox appears
  • To properly position, the checkbox inside the cell, move the mouse pointer over it and drag it to the desired location as soon as the pointer transforms to a four-pointed arrow.
  • To edit the checkbox text, right-click on the checkbox and select the Edit Text option from the menu that appears.
Add a Checkbox in Excel
  • Then delete the text Check Box 1, so that only the check box remains. The first check box is ready.
first
  • To add checkboxes for all the items in the list, select the first cell containing the check box and drag down the fill handle present at the lower right corner of the selected cell, to the last cell where you want to copy the checkbox.
checkboxes list

Now you can check the boxes when that thing or task is done or completed.

3. Adding strikethrough functionality

We want to strikethrough the item on the list when the checkbox is checked to indicate that the task has been completed. This can be achieved by conditional formatting. Follow these steps:

  • First, we need to link each check box to a cell to indicate whether the check box is checked or not and to apply conditional formatting.
  • Here, the column next to the checkboxes is added to display the status as TRUE and FALSE values for checked and unchecked boxes respectively.
status column added
  • Right-click the first checkbox, select Format Control… from the options that appear.
format control
  • In the Format Control dialog box, type the reference of the cell you want to link in the Cell link text box and click on OK. Here, we have linked cell C2 with the first check box.
first checkbox statsu
  • We can now see that the status for the first check box displays FALSE when it is unchecked.
first checkbox unchecked
  • Perform the above steps for every check box to link them to the cell right next to them in the Status column.
status list

You can see that the status displays TRUE for every checked check box and FALSE for every unchecked check box. To add another functionality so that whenever a checkbox is checked a strikethrough is applied to the item corresponding to show completion, follow these steps:

  • Select all the items in the Shopping list.
  • Click on Conditional Formatting in the Styles group on the Home tab.
conditional formatting
  • From the options that appear click on New Rule….
new rule drop down 4
  • In the New Rule Formatting dialog box, select the Use a formula to determine which cells to format option under the Select a Rule Type: group.
new rule dialog box 4
  • In the Format values where this formula is true: text box, type =C2=TRUE.
first format rule
  • Click on the Format button to launch the Format Cells dialog box.
format cells font dialog
  • Under the Effects section in the Font tab, check the Strikethrough option and click on OK. Finally, click on OK on the New Formatting Rule dialog box.
strikethough
  • You can now see that strikethrough is applied to the items when the checkboxes corresponding to it are checked.
strikethrough applied 1

4. Remove checkboxes from worksheet

Deleting a single checkbox is easy, select the checkbox and press the delete key to remove it. Follow these steps to delete multiple checkboxes from an Excel worksheet:

  • Click on Find & Select present in the Editing group on the Home tab.
find and select
  • Select the Go To Special… option from the menu that appears.
go to special
  • In the Go To Special dialog box, click on the Objects radio button and click OK.
go to special dialog
  • This will select all the checkboxes present in the current worksheet.
all checkbox select
  • Now simply press the delete key on your keyboard to remove all the checkboxes.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to insert a checkbox in Excel and add strikethrough functionality to it.