Using an electronic Check Box - Check! Check!

When you are searching through Word, perhaps looking for something else, you may be surprised at what you find. My sister and I were refreshing our skills in Word at the advanced level and found this neat little checkbox. Not the checkbox you can insert from Symbols (Insert, Symbols, scroll down until you find Symbols and then choose your checkbox and press Insert), but this is a checkbox that you can use electronically to either put a check mark in it or unclick it. Here is how you do it in Word 2003 and in Word 2007:

Word 2003

• View - Toolbars – choose Forms – go to the icon that looks like a checkbox and click on it. A checkbox will be inserted into your document where your cursor is.
  
• To check the box, go to the left of the box and double-click – when the pop-up appears, go under Default Value, click either Not Checked or Checked. Unchecked is the default for a box.
  
• To take the shading off the checkbox, click the [a] icon in the Forms toolbar, it is a toggle for shade and unshade. Shading is the default for the checkbox.

Word 2007

You will need to activate the Developer Tab.

• Click the Office Button (top left of ribbon), at bottom right there is a box called Word Options, Click on that, choose Popular (at top) and then click Show Developer tab in the Ribbon

To add a checkbox:

• On the Developer tab, in the Controls group, click Legacy Tools (you will need to hold your cursor over the icons to see which one is Legacy Tools, on mine it is the last icon)
• Under Legacy Forms, click Check Box Form Field (or the icon that looks like a checkbox)
• To take the shading off the checkbox, click the [a] icon in the Forms toolbar, it is a toggle for shade and unshade. Shading is the default for a box
• To check the box, go to the left of it and double-click – when the pop-up appears, go under Default Value, click either Not Checked or Checked. Unchecked is the default for a box.