Thanks Dave. That works. Turns out I had two problems:

1. The alt key on my laptop is not configured like that of most "regular"
keyboards. When I press the alt key, no text is written to the screen. I
attached an external one to work around this problem.

2. I didn't understand that the checkmark only shows up AFTER the user
presses the enter key.

So now I have another question: How do I sum (count) the number of boxes
checked in a column?

"Dave Peterson" wrote:

alt-0252, not alt-2052

Don't forget to format the cell as wingdings.

Roger T. wrote:

Dave,

When I try to enter the alt-2052; nothing appears in the text box. Any
guesses ast to what I might be doing wrong? I've tried pasting in ü;ü;ü;ü
from at text file, and from the Windows character map, but those don't seem
to have the desired effect.

"Dave Peterson" wrote:

One more option:

Maybe just give the cell a custom format.

Format the cells by:
selecting them
format|cells|number tab|custom category
In the "type:" box, put this:

alt-0252;alt-0252;alt-0252;alt-0252

But hit and hold the alt key while you're typing the 0252 from the numeric
keypad.

It should look something like this when you're done.
ü;ü;ü;ü
(umlaut over the lower case u separated by semicolons)

And format that range of cells as Wingdings.

Now, no matter what you type (spacebar, x, anyoldtextatall), you'll see a check
mark.

Hit the delete key on the keyboard to clear the cell.

If you have to use that "checkmark" in later formulas:

=if(a1="","no checkmark","Yes checkmark")

You can just see if the cell is empty.

Arno Rite wrote:

I want a cell to be formatted as a checkbox. I don't want to use form or
activex controls. Is this doable?

--

Dave Peterson


--

Dave Peterson