Johny,

A solution is to predefine what 'symbols' you want to use ie 'tick
mark' and insert each of them into a seperate cell in an Excel
spreadsheet using whichever font & colour you want that provides the
'symbol' you want. Then you export each cell and save it as a JPG
image. (I use the ASAP utilities to do this which is an Excel add-in
freely available)

The JPG images can then be pasted into any cell, it anchors itself to
the top left of the cell, and more importantly does affect the contents
of the cell.

This may seem a lot of work but once the images have been created you
can paste them in as many times as you like. To make things really easy
create a menu item from your personal.xls file and on a click the image
can be inserted. It would be even better if you did this as an add-in
but l dont know the level of your VBA skills. Both these solutions
would then be available for all workbooks.

let me know how you get on

Regards

Michael Beckinsale