Create a Checklist in Excel
I will take you through few series of steps so that it would be easy to understand. So, let us start without any ado.
1] Activate Developer Tab in Excel
As a first step, you need to enable the ‘Developer’ tab in Excel. To do so, go to File and select Options. In ‘Excel Options’ dialog box, select ‘Customize Ribbon’ and on the right side check the box beside ‘Developer’ and click Ok. Now you could see ‘Developer’ tab on the Excel ribbon.
2] Prepare Tasks in Excel
Now, prepare a column ‘To Do’ and enter the tasks that you want to do. Say, I have added tasks from E7 to E9.
3] Add Checkboxes in Excel
It is time to add Checkboxes. Besides the ‘To Do’ column we need to add Checkboxes. So, for every entry in column E7 to E9, we need to add checkboxes from F7 to F9. To do so, first, click on ‘Developer’, click on ‘Insert’ and click the checkbox icon under ‘Form Controls’. Now, click on the Excel cell where we want to insert this checkbox and in this case it is F7.
We can see that some default text was added along with the checkbox. To remove that, right-click on the checkbox, select ‘Edit Text’ and delete the text. Repeat this step for the remaining columns also (F8 and F9 in this case).
4] Assign a cell to each Checkbox
Now, we need to assign a cell to each checkbox such that, when we tick and untick the checkbox, then values TRUE and FALSE need to be shown respectively. To do so, right-click on the checkbox and click ‘Formal Control’.
In ‘Formal Control’ dialog box under ‘Control’ tab give the address of the cell in ‘Cell link’ box which you want to assign to the checkbox. Let me choose the cell ‘H7’. Make sure that you give the cell address as ‘H7’ only and not in any other format. Repeat this step for the remaining checkboxes as well.
5] Apply Conditional Formatting
Select the tasks which you have added in previous steps, click on ‘Conditional Formatting’ under ‘Home’ tab and select ‘New Rule’. Now, select the rule type as ‘Use a formula to determine which cells to format’. In the condition textbox, we need to check the value of the cell which gets updated when the checkbox is ticked as TRUE or not. Next, click on ‘Format’ button, select ‘Strikethrough’ under ‘Effects’ and select a red color from ‘Color’ dropdown and click ‘Ok’. Repeat this step for every task you entered.
Now, it is the time to hide the column which gets updated for every tick and untick of a checkbox, so that Excel sheet only has tasks and checkboxes. So, now when you tick the checkbox beside the task, you could see that text gets red color and it strikes the text which mentions that the task has been done. This is the simple way to create a checklist in Excel. See this post if you would like to know how to make a Checklist in Word.
