Question:  In Excel, 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 Forms toolbar. To view the Forms toolbar, select Toolbars > Forms 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()

    Dim cBox As CheckBox
    Dim LRow As Integer
    Dim LRange As String

    LName = Application.Caller
    Set cBox = ActiveSheet.CheckBoxes(LName)

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

    'Change date in column B, if checkbox is checked
    If cBox.Value > 0 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