Microsoft Access Tips for Serious Users

Provided by Allen Browne, October 2004.  Last updated March 2008.

Format check boxes in reports

Consider using a text box in place of a check box on reports. You can then display crosses or check marks, boxed or unboxed, any size, any color, with background colors, and even use conditional formatting.

The text box's Format property lets you specify a different format for negative values. Since, Access uses -1 for True, and 0 for False, the Format property lets you display any characters you want.

For this example, we use the check mark characters from the Wingdings font, since all Windows computers have this font installed.

The steps

1. Open the report in design view.
2. If you already have a check box on your report, delete it.
3. Add a text box for your Yes/No field.
4. Set these properties:

   Control Source:	Name of your yes/no field here.
   Font Name:	WingDings
   Width:	0.18 in

5. Type these characters into the Format property of the text box:
   • Hold down the Alt key, and type 0168 on the numeric keypad (the character for False),
   • semicolon (the separator between False and True formats),
   • backslash (indicating the next character is a literal),
   • Hold down the Alt key, and type 0254 on the numeric keypad (the character for True),

You can now increase the Font Size, set the Fore Color or Back Color, and so on.

The characters

Select the characters from this list:

Character	Keypad number	Description
	Alt+0254	Checked box
	Alt+0253	Crossed box
	Alt+0252	Check mark (unboxed)
	Alt+0251	Cross mark (unboxed)
	Alt+0168	Unchecked box

To leave the text box blank for unchecked, omit the first character in the Format property, i.e. nothing before the semi-colon.

You can find other characters with the Character Map applet that comes with all versions of Windows. There are many other uses for these symbols, e.g. as graphics on your command buttons.