How to Put Tick Mark in Excel?

In Excel, a checkmark is used to show whether a given task is done or not. Remember, it is different from the checkbox. There are two kinds of checkmarks in Excel – interactive checkbox and tick symbol.

A tick box, also known as a checkbox or checkmark box, is a special control that allows to select or deselect an option, i.e., check or uncheck a tick box, by clicking on it with the mouse.

A tick symbol, referred to as a check symbol or checkmark, is a special symbol (?) that can insert into a cell (alone or in combination with any other characters) to express the concept. Sometimes, the cross mark (x) is also used for this purpose, but more often, it indicates incorrectness or failure.

There are three simple methods to insert a checkmark in excel. The first one is just copying a tick mark and paste it into Excel, the second option is inserting a symbol from the insert tab, and the third option is when we change the font to windings 2 and press the keyboard shortcut SHIFT+P.

How to Put a Tick Using the Symbol Command

The most common way to insert a tick symbol in Excel is the symbol command. Follow the following steps:

Step 1: Select a cell where you want to insert a checkmark.

Step 2: Go to the Insert tab and click on the Symbol button in the Symbols group.

How to Put Tick Mark in Excel

Step 3: In the Symbol dialog box, on the Symbols tab, click the drop-down arrow next to the Font box, and select Wingdings.

Step 4: A couple of checkmark and cross symbols can find at the bottom of the list. Select the symbol of your choosing, and click Insert.

Step 5: Finally, click Close to close the Symbol window.

How to Put Tick Mark in Excel

As soon as you’ve selected a certain symbol in the Symbol dialog window, Excel will display its code in the Character code box at the bottom.

For example, the tick symbol’s character code (?) is 252, as shown in the above image. Knowing this code, you can easily write a formula to insert a check symbol in Excel or count tick marks in a selected range.

Using the Symbol command, you can insert a checkmark in an empty cell or add a tick as part of the cell contents.

How to Insert Tick Mark Using the CHAR Function

Maybe it is not a conventional way to add a tick or cross symbol in Excel, but if you love working with formulas, it may become your favorite one. This method can only use for inserting a tick in an empty cell. Knowing the following symbol codes:

How to Put Tick Mark in Excel

The formula to put a checkmark in Excel is as simple as this:

To add a cross symbol, use either of the following formulas:

NOTE: For the tick and cross symbols to be displayed correctly, the Wingdings font should be applied to the formula cells.

How to Put Tick Mark in Excel

Once you’ve inserted a formula in one cell, you can swiftly copy a tick to other cells like you usually copy formulas in Excel.

To get rid of the formulas, use the Paste Special feature to replace them with values:

  • Select the formula cell.
  • Press Ctrl + Cto copy it.
  • Right-click on the selected cell.
  • Then click Paste Special
  • And click on the Values

Insert Tick by Typing the Character Code

Another quick way to insert a check symbol in Excel is typing its character code directly in a cell while holding the Alt key. The detailed steps follow below:

Step 1: Select the cell where you want to put a tick.

Step 2: Go to the Home tab and change font to Wingdings in the Font group.

Step 3: Press and hold ALT while typing one of the following character codes on the numeric keypad.

How to Put Tick Mark in Excel

As you may have noticed, the character codes are the same as the codes we used in the CHAR formulas but for leading zeros.

NOTE: For the character codes to work, make sure NUM LOCK is on, and use the numerical keypad rather than the numbers at the top of the keyboard.

Insert Tick Symbol Using Keyboard Shortcuts

If you do not particularly like the appearance of the four check symbols we have added so far, check out the following table for more variations:

How to Put Tick Mark in Excel

To get any of the above tick marks in your Excel, apply either Wingdings 2 or Webdings font to the cell where you want to insert a tick and press the corresponding keyboard shortcut.

How to Make a Checkmark with AutoCorrect in Excel

If you need to insert tick marks in your sheets daily, none of the above methods may seem fast enough. Luckily, Excel’s AutoCorrect feature can automate the work for you. To put this, you need to follow the following steps:

Step 1: Insert the desired check symbol in a cell using any of the techniques described above.

Step 2: Select the symbol in the formula bar and press Ctrl + C to copy it.

How to Put Tick Mark in Excel

Don’t be discouraged by the symbol’s appearance in the formula bar. Even if it looks different from what you see in the screenshot above, it just means that you inserted a tick symbol using another character code.

Step 3: Look at the Font box and make a good note of the font theme, as you will need it later when “auto-inserting” a tick in other cells.

How to Put Tick Mark in Excel

Step 4: Click on the File tab, go to the Excel Options, and select Proofing.

Step 5: And click on the AutoCorrect Options.

How to Put Tick Mark in Excel

Step 6: The AutoCorrect dialog window will open, and you do the following:

  • In the Replace box, type a word or phrase that you want to associate with the check symbol, e.g., “tickmark”.
  • In the Withbox, press Ctrl + V to paste the symbol that you copied in the formula bar.

How to Put Tick Mark in Excel

Step 7: Click on the Add button, and then click on the OK button to close the AutoCorrect dialog window.

And now, whenever you want to put a tick in your Excel sheet, do the following:

  • Type the word that you linked with the checkmark, and press Enter.
  • The symbol ΓΌ (or some other symbol that you copied from the formula bar) will appear in a cell. To turn it into an Excel tick symbol, apply the appropriate font to the cell.

In this method, you have to configure the AutoCorrect option only once. From now on, Excel will be adding a tick for you automatically every time you type the associated word in a cell.

Conditionally Format Cells Based on the Tick Symbol

If your cells do not contain any data other than a tick mark, you can create a conditional formatting rule that will apply the desired format to those cells automatically.

A big advantage of this approach is that you will not have to re-format the cells manually when you delete a tick symbol. To create a conditional formatting rule, perform the following steps:

Step 1: Select the cells that you want to format.

Step 2: Go to the Home tab and click on the Conditional Formatting in the Styles group.

Step 3: Now click on the New Rule button.

Step 4: In the New Formatting Rule dialog box, select Use a formula to determine which cells to format.

Step 5: In the Format values where this formula is a true box, enter the CHAR formula:

Where B2 is the topmost cells that can potentially contain a tick, and 252 is the character code of the tick symbol inserted in your sheet.

Step 6: Click on the Format button, choose the desired formatting style, and click OK.

The result will look something similar to this:

How to Put Tick Mark in Excel

NOTE: This formatting technique works only for the tick symbols with a known character code added via the symbol command, CHAR function, or Character code.

How to Count Tick Marks in Excel

Experienced Excel users must have gotten the formula up and running based on the previous sections’ information. Using the CHAR function to detect the cells containing a check symbol and the COUNTIF function to count those cells:

B2:B9 is the range you want to count checkmarks, and 252 is the check symbol’s character code.

How to Put Tick Mark in Excel

NOTE: As is the case with conditional formatting, the above formula can only handle tick symbols with a specific character code and works for cells that do not contain any data other than a check symbol.

If you use Excel tick boxes (checkboxes) rather than tick symbols, you can count the selected (checked) ones by linking checkboxes to cells and then counting the number of TRUE values in the linked cells.