Excel: Update a cell when a checkbox is clicked (Control Toolbox toolbar) in Excel 2003/XP/2000/97

Question: In Excel 2003/XP/2000/97, is there a way to link a check box to another cell? For example, I've made a checkbox and whenever the checkbox is clicked, I would like the current date to automatically appear in another cell. Is this possible?

Also I would like the date to not change whenever the worksheet is opened. For example, if a cell has been set to July 16th and the worksheet is opened on July 17th, I still want the cell to read as July 16th.

Answer: Because you don't want the cell value changing whenever the spreadsheet "recalculates", we'll have to create a macro to determine when to update the cell value.

Let's take a look at an example.

Download Excel spreadsheet (as demonstrated below)

In our spreadsheet, there are two columns - column A contains a checkbox and column B contains the "linked" cell.

We've created various checkboxes in column A using the Control Toolbox toolbar. To view the Control Toolbox toolbar, select Toolbars > Control Toolbox under the View menu.

When the checkbox in column A is "checked", the associated cell in column B will be updated with the current system date. When the checkbox is "unchecked", the associated cell value will be cleared.

This is accomplished with a macro called Process_Checkbox. You can view the macro by pressing Alt-F11.

The macro determines what row the checkbox resides in and then "sets the value" of the associated cell in column B.

Macro Code:

The macro code looks like this:

Sub Process_CheckBox(pObject)

    Dim LRow As Integer
    Dim LRange As String

    'Find row that checkbox resides in
    LRow = pObject.TopLeftCell.Row
    LRange = "B" & CStr(LRow)

    'Change date in column B, if checkbox is checked
    If pObject.Value = True Then
        ActiveSheet.Range(LRange).Value = Date

    'Clear date in column B, if checkbox is unchecked
    Else
        ActiveSheet.Range(LRange).Value = Null
    End If

End Sub

Private Sub CheckBox1_Click()
    Process_CheckBox CheckBox1
End Sub

Private Sub CheckBox2_Click()
    Process_CheckBox CheckBox2
End Sub

Private Sub CheckBox3_Click()
    Process_CheckBox CheckBox3
End Sub

Private Sub CheckBox4_Click()
    Process_CheckBox CheckBox4
End Sub

Private Sub CheckBox5_Click()
    Process_CheckBox CheckBox5
End Sub

Private Sub CheckBox6_Click()
    Process_CheckBox CheckBox6
End Sub

Private Sub CheckBox7_Click()
    Process_CheckBox CheckBox7
End Sub