How To Create To Do List or Checklist in Excel
hello everyone my grandpa from another
set of eyes with today’s Excel bytes
blog post today we’re going to create a
to-do list in Excel we’re going to use
the checkboxes and we’re going to use
conditional formatting to make it easier
to determine when we’ve completed the
task so here we go let’s see how this is
going to work here’s the actual finished
product have checkboxes here and my
list of tasks here and as I check any
one of these checkboxes it’ll turn that
task red and strike it through so I know
that I’ve completed that task so that’s
what we want to accomplish here so just
to eliminate the need to retype I’m just
going to highlight this list of tasks
and let’s see highlight that list of
tasks I’m going to copy it and paste it
over here widen that column just in case
we have tasks that are longer in name
I’ll put my header up here done and I
will format that using my format painter
just like I have my tasks okay so the
next thing we want to do is insert our
checkboxes now checkboxes are found in
Developer tab in Excel under the
controls now if you don’t have the
Developer tab in your ribbon you need to
go to file options customize ribbon and
under customize ribbon you’ll see the
Developer tab it just may not be checked
so you want to check that to make sure
it then appears on your ribbon once
you’ve done that go to the Developer tab
and again under controls under insert
click the down arrow and airier form
controls and here’s your checkbox you
click on that go over there where you
want to insert it and just drag it there
and it’ll create that box in that space
I’m going to now move it Center it a
little bit so it’s positioned where I
want it and the next thing I’m going to
do is right-click on it and edit the
text a cursor appears right before the
text I’m just going to delete all that
hit enter click off of that and now I
have my checkbox next to the first task
next thing I’ll do is
go up copy that and paste it into the
rest of the cells so now I have a nice a
nice neat list of checkboxes that I can
check and uncheck next to each one of
the cells now I need to tie each one of
those checkboxes to a linked cell so
that I can use a formula based on that
linked cell to activate the conditional
formatting so I’m just going to insert a
row here which I’ll later hide and what
I’ll do now is right-click on each of
the checkboxes go to format control and
where it says cell link I can either
click here click on that cell and say
okay or so now when I check it notice it
pops up true uncheck it it’ll be false
so I’m going to do that to all the rest
of my checkboxes, I can also right click
go to format control and instead of
clicking that I know it’s going to be
cell in this case j-3 hit OK right click
here format control I can go to j4 and
format control j5 now you can do this
with VBA if you want to do some
programming but if you’re not familiar
with that you may just need to do this
manually for your list of checkboxes
here but just like a few seconds to do
them all but once they’re done
it’ll be complete and you won’t have to
go back and do them again so now anyone
of these I check will give me a true
when I uncheck them it will give me a
false so now the last step is to
conditionally format your tasks so that
when these are true it will strike them
through and make them read when they’re
falls it’ll leave them in the default
formatting so I’m highlighting my list
of tasks what I want to conditionally
format I’m going to go to the Home tab
of my ribbon and select conditional
formatting and select new rule now the
new formatting rule dialog box pops up
and I’ll choose user
formula to determine which cells to
format and we’ll go into the formula bar
here and I’ll click equal and I’ll click
this cell now notice when I click it it
makes it an absolute cell reference so I
have to change that to relative cell
reference so that as it formats it each
of these cells going down that list it
won’t just point to the first one it
will point to the relative one next to
the test that I want to format so I’ll
just hit my f4 key once twice three
times to get rid of the absolute cell
references and then I’ll do equals and
true so there’s my formula when J 2
equals true I’m going to have it
initiate the conditional formatting and
I’ll click on the format button I’ll
select strikethrough and I’ll select red
as my color say ok and ok and now as I
select each one of these as I check it
notice it turns to true and because
that’s true it initiates the conditional
formatting making these red and striking
them through and just as a last step
I’ll hide this column you can also put
those on another sheet if you want so
they’re totally out of the way or you
can just hide them like I’ve done here
now when I check any of the boxes my
tasks turn to red and our struck through
and there you have it
creating a to-do list in Excel using
check boxes and conditional formatting
hopefully that’s useful to you thanks
for stopping by and if you’d like to see
more please go to my website excel bytes
comm and I hope you subscribe
happy excelling
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