Stop Using True/False in your Excel Tables and Use the New’ish New Excel Checkbox Control

I use Microsoft Excel to keep track of so many things and have always wanted an Excel Checkbox that works like putting True or False in a cell (or 0 or 1). Then, just like my discovery of the new’ish textbefore() – textafter() and xlookup() functions, I was shocked to learn that at some point in 2024, they added a usable Excel Checkbox that did just what I wanted. Finally. Right there in insert! So, I thought I’d share it with other long-time Excel users who didn’t know it was there.

This is the Excel Checkbox You Have Been Waiting For

Those of us who have been using Microsoft Excel, the world’s most popular tool for everything, for decades have probably tried the venerable form or ActiveX checkbox control in the Developer tab to save time on setting a cell to true or false… except it doesn’t work that way. Those developer controls need code to convert their value into a cell value. And since they are not a cell value, they are hard to move and size.

Well, after a long time, the developers at some Microsoft location added a new control that is actually in the cell. You check it, the Value is set to True, you uncheck it, the value is set to False.

To add it to a cell:

1. Click in the cell you want the checkbox to go into
2. Go to the insert Tab
3. Click on Controls > Checkbox
   

That is it. If you click on the cell, you can see in the formula bar that the value of the cell is True or False. Exactly what we want.

Here is a simple example. The formula in E3 and E4 are just = D3 and D4 so you can see the value change.

Making Tables Easier to Use and Read with the Excel Checkbox

I use tables for everything. I just updated an employee tracking tool using this new control, and it is so much easier to see which values are true or false. You can change the value with a click. Since that sheet has actual employee data, I can’t share it. So I made a fake one:

I put an Excel Checkbox in each column for the three characteristics I want to track. Then in the “EmpDets” column, I used the True or False values to create a string. On the total row, I used CountIf() to get a percentage of True for each characteristic.

Here is a zip file with the spreadsheet I used to play with this new’ish (finally) and useful feature.

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PADT is not an Excel company. Like the vast majority of companies out there, our technical, sales, and administrative teams use Excel for everything. If you find any of our content useful and you do mechanical engineering or know someone who does, please consider or refer us for simulation, design, or additive manufacturing.