Color Code Your Google Sheets with a Checkbox
I like to joke that the greatest invention of my lifetime is checkboxes in Google Sheets. They are SO EASY! Use the Insert menu and choose checkbox. Boom! Now when you check that checkbox, you want something to happen. How about cells light up?!
Template
Highlight Range of Cells
Insert some checkboxes into your Google Sheets spreadsheet and then highlight the cells you want to format when the checkbox is checked.
Format Menu
Go to the Format menu and choose “Conditional Formatting.”
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Custom Formula
In the sidebar for conditional format rules change the format rules to “Custom formula is.”
=A2=true
The custom formula starts with an equals sign. The statement to check for is A2 = true … assuming that A2 contains the checkbox. Notice this is a DOUBLE equals sign.
=A2=TRUE
Love it! A great template to quickly utilize the power of conditional formatting. I introduced a number of our teachers to conditional formatting to highlight missing assignments and to colour code mark ranges in their gradebooks. A big help in quickly sorting through large numbers of marks.
I love this! I am creating a doc with 3 columns of checkboxes. I want when I click the box in column C it Changes the checkbox in column D to red. How can I format it so that when I check column D the red disappears? Thank you in advance!
This is possible I just do not have a quick answer on this for you. Good luck!
I can’t get this to work for a range of cells, only a single cell. My checkbox is in A2, my range is B2:EV2. However, when the box is checked, only B2 highlights.
Try using Dollar Signs for absolute cell referencing.
Dollar signs does get me the whole row/range, but there appears to be no way to “fill down”. Does each row need to be done individually?
It automatically figures it out based on the first one you set if you have it all highlighted when you create the rule
Did you work out how to get more than 1 cell to highlight?
I believe so
I was having the same issue and Alice’s tip solved the problem for me. Change the formula to this: =$A2=true