How to Insert a Checkbox in Excel

When working in Excel, you might be highly focused on numbers, formulas, and general data, but you can also make simpler things like a To-do list, but how can you make it if you don’t even know how to insert a checkbox? Thus keep reading because here you will find out!

Note: Inserting checkboxes is the first step of a more advanced operation before putting them to work.

Developer tab

First and foremost, you need to go to the developer tab to start this process, but sometimes it can’t appear in the principal panel. That’s why you ought to enable it by the following steps:

1. Right-click on any of the tabs in the principal panel.
2. Select the “Customize the Ribbon” option.
3. Go to the right in the Excel Options dialog box, where it says “Customize the ribbon,” and in the main Tabs, verify if the “Developer” option is already checked; if not, you need to click on it.

There you have it. Now you can see the “Developer” tab on the ribbon.

Add a Checkbox

Now that you have enabled the “Developer” tab, you need to search the Form Controls commands, which are in the third group of tools you can find next to “Add-ins” once there, you must do the following:

1. Click on the “Insert” dropdown option.
2. In the context menu, you will see the title “Form controls,” Under that, you can find some icons. Pick the Checkbox icon represented by a blue checkmark within a white square.
3. Click on the cell you want to put in the check box.

Once you have it, you’ll notice you’ve inserted the check box named by default “Check Box 1” in the selected cell. If you want to remove the caption name text, you must right-click on the checkbox, select the “Edit text” option in the context menu and remove it.

Alright! This is how you can insert a single one, but if you need two or more, you have three options by which you can do it:

1. Duplicate: This method will locate the new boxes near the principal one.
   1. Select a checkbox.
   2. Press Ctrl + D to duplicate and paste.
2. Copy and paste: With this technique, you can create new checkboxes wherever you want.
   1. Select a checkbox.
   2. Hit Ctrl + C to copy.
   3. Choose another location for the check box
   4. Press Ctrl + V to paste.
3. Copy into adjacent cells:
   1. Use the arrow key to select the checkbox

Note: Don’t click on the cell itself. So, you need to click near the checkbox and then use the arrow keys to highlight the checkbox you need.

1. Now, with the mouse, you need to go to the lower right-hand corner cell containing the checkbox.
2. Drag the fill handle in the direction you want to appear in the new checkboxes.

After that, you need to rename it as you prefer and set the size and the position. But don’t worry is quite simple:

• To resize: Drag on the handlebars.
• To position: Right-click on the cells containing the checkbox, choose the “Format control” option, go to the properties panel in the context menu, search again for the “Format control” option and select “Don’t move or size with cells.”

Delete a Checkbox

Now that you know how to insert a checkbox, you should know how to remove them. You must hit the Ctrl key, pick the cell containing the checkbox, and remove it by pressing the Delete key. Is the same process for a single one of a couple of cells.

If you have multiple checkboxes along the whole document, and it is hard to you to find them all, you can use the following method to erase them:

1. Go to the home Tab
2. Search the “Editing” group (which is the last one in the ribbon)
3. Click on the “Find and Select” dropdown.
4. Pick the “Go to special option.”
5. Select the “Object” option in the context menu.
6. Click “ok” to double-check.

Then all the cells containing checkboxes will be highlighted, and all that remains is pressing the Delete key on your keyboard to remove them.

Try it yourself! Insert all the checkboxes you need and remove them quickly. Remember, you can do more complex operations and use the checkboxes.