Constraining check boxes in a row

Question

Level 1

25 points

Constraining check boxes in a row

I'm a newbie on Numbers. I have a psych survey spreadsheet. Each row is a question like "Are you feeling happy?" and each column goes from 0 for not at all to 4 for Very much so. So if you check column 2 it's Not at all, column 3 somewhat,.. I then add up all the scores using a COUNTIF. This all works fine but now it bothers me that you can check more than one column for each question. Really it should work so that for every row only one checkbox can be checked. So if you have checked "Not at all" for a question and then want to change your mind to "Somewhat" when you click on the checkbox for Somewhat the checkbox next to it for Not at All is automatically deselected. Sort of standard radio button UI. Hope that's clear, here is a simple example row:

Not At All Sometimes Always

Are you Happy? X

Can this be easily done?

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2), 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5 8GB RAM

Posted on Feb 12, 2016 12:23 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

SGIII

Level 8

35,330 points

Feb 12, 2016 1:25 PM in response to JGatsby

Instead of using several Checkbox columns how about using one Pop-Up Menu column.

In this example column B of Table 2 is formatted as Pop-Up Menu.

Cell B2 in Table 2-1 has the formula, copied down the column.

=COUNTIF(Table 2::B,A2)

SG

Reply

Answer 2

JGatsby Author

Level 1

25 points

Feb 12, 2016 1:31 PM in response to SGIII

That is definitely better, thanks. Is the radio button option just not possible? I did some more searching and found someone with the similar question who was told it just couldn't be done, so I'm guessing not but just want to make sure. I would still prefer to use check boxes if possible because 1) I'm lazy and 2) This is currently a paper form using the check box format so I like to keep it as familiar to current users as possible. Thanks for the prompt reply.

Reply

Answer 3

SGIII

Level 8

35,330 points

Feb 12, 2016 8:28 PM in response to JGatsby

I believe Pop-Up Menu is the best way to go if you want to make one and only one choice among many. Numbers doesn't have a "radio button," though you could request the feature via Numbers > Provide Numbers Feedback in your menu. Thanks for the gold star.

SG

Reply