How to Insert Radio Buttons in Excel? A Step-by-Step Guide

(Note: This guide on how to insert radio buttons in Excel is suitable for all Excel versions including Office 365)

In addition to being used for data entry and retrieval, Microsoft Excel can also be used to create fillable forms. When you take a poll, create a survey, or make a quiz to understand others’ perceptions, these fillable forms help you in a variety of ways. One important element of a fillable form is the radio button, also called the Options button.

Radio buttons are often confused with checkboxes. Using the checkboxes, you can select multiple options from the given list. Whereas, a radio button is used to select or pinpoint any one particular option from a list of choices.

In an Excel worksheet, there can be any number of radio buttons. But, only one button can be checked based on the user inputs. Also, radio buttons in Excel help the user to create, view, and perform operations on the data in two different ways.

In this article, I will tell you how to insert radio buttons in Excel. You’ll also learn how to group and delete them.

You’ll Learn:

How to Insert Radio Buttons in Excel?
Deleting Radio Buttons in Excel
- By Pressing the Delete Key
- Delete Radio Buttons from the Whole Worksheet

*Download Sample Workbook for How to Insert Radio Buttons in Excel*

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How to Insert Radio Buttons in Excel?

Enable the Developer Option in the Ribbon

This is one of the foremost requirements when you insert radio buttons in Excel. By default, Excel does not have the Developer ribbon enabled. You can enable it manually when you need it. The Developer tab contains options relating to Macros, VBA, Add-ins, and XML.

To enable the developer tab, open the Excel worksheet and right-click on the ribbon. Make sure to click between the ribbon option rather than the space after the options.

Select Customize the Ribbon.

This opens the Excel Options dialog box.

In the dialog box, check the checkbox for Developer and click OK.

You can now see the Developer option in the Ribbons tab.

Insert a Radio Button

Once the developer tab is enabled, let us see how to insert radio button in Excel.

To insert a radio button, navigate to the Developer tab. Under the Controls section, click on the dropdown from Insert and click on the Option Button.

This changes the default mouse pointer to a crosshair-like pointer. Using that, left-click and drag to outline the Option button (Radio button). Or, you can easily just left-click and the radio button populates with a default width.

You can see that the populated button has two names: one in the Alt text which is visible on the worksheet which you can click and rename it. The other name can be seen in the Name Box, called the backend name which does not change even after you rename the radio button.

Hold the Ctrl key and click on the radio button. This outlines the button. You can then use the anchor points to move or resize the radio buttons.

You can double-click on the text to rename the text. When you move or resize the button, you can hold the ALT to snap the radio button to the dimensions of the gridlines.

Now, click away. This exits the selection mode.

Hereafter, you can now click on the radio button to check it.

This inserts one radio button. If you want to add multiple radio buttons, there are two easy ways to do so.

Use the Developer tab. You can use the above-mentioned methods to insert the radio button, resize, move to the desired position and rename it.
Enter the selection mode and copy the particular radio button. Now, paste that button any number of times to create multiple radio buttons.

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Link a Radio Button

Inserting the radio button only adds the button on the screen. There is no validation or data to serve as a value for the selected radio button.

In this case, linking a radio button provides definite data in the referenced cell based on your selection. This acts as a cue to collect data using which you can perform any function.

Consider the above example which has four options. When the user selects one of the four options, the value corresponding to the selected radio button populates the selected cell. In this case, you can use the particular value from the cell C3 in any of the formulas.

To link the radio buttons to the cell, right-click on a radio button and select Format Control.

Navigate to the Control tab. You can see if the radio button is checked or unchecked from the Value option.

To link a cell, enter any cell number in the Cell link text box. Or, you can click on the small upward and select the cell. In this case, let us select the C3 to be the reference cell.

Click OK.

This makes cell C3 the reference cell. When you select any option, the corresponding option number populates in cell C3. Here, there are 4 options. When you select Option 3, the number 3 populates cell C3. And if you select Option 2, the number 2 populates in cell C3.

Group Radio Buttons Together

Excel can have any number of radio buttons linked to a particular cell reference. What if there are multiple questions each with a different answer? Consider an example of a quiz, the end-user has to select an option in the 2 questions consisting of 4 options each.

Randomly creating the radio buttons makes it look less aesthetically appealing, but on the other hand, when you group questions and options, it makes the radio buttons more up to the purpose.

Another advantage of grouping the cells is that when you create or copy radio buttons to use in multiple places, clicking on one button changes the selection on another button. When you group options together, the selection will only pertain to that particular option and not the other options in the other cell.

Let us now see how to group options in Excel.

Navigate to the Developer ribbon. From the Insert dropdown, click on the Group Box option.

This changes the default pointer to a crosshair. Now, outline the options that you want to group together.

Change the name of the group by double-clicking on the cells or right-clicking and selecting Edit Text.

Now, select all the options including the grouping box, then right-click on it and select Group.

Then using the above-mentioned methods create the radio buttons, create a group box, link the cell to a reference cell, and finally, right-click to group the cells.

This way you can independently select the options from different groups and they’ll reflect in the referenced cell.

Deleting Radio Buttons in Excel

In case you are not satisfied with the option listed for the radio button or you want to delete the whole options radio button, there are a couple of easy methods to do that.

By Pressing the Delete Key

To delete a radio button, you have to first select the option by holding the Ctrl key. This highlights the radio button instead of just selecting the radio button.

If you want to highlight all the options in the radio button. Select one option and press Ctrl + A.

Now, press Delete to delete the selected options.

Delete Radio Buttons from the Whole Worksheet

There is another easy method to delete particular radio buttons throughout the whole worksheet.

To see all the radio options in the whole worksheet, navigate to Home.

This opens the selection pane towards the right of the worksheet. You can either choose to hide by clicking on the eye button. If you want to delete that particular option, you can just select the option and press Delete.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can we insert radio buttons in Excel?

Yes, you can insert radio buttons in Excel. By navigating to the Developer tab and selecting the Options button, you can insert the radio button in the desired location.

What is the easiest method to create multiple options for the radio buttons in Excel?

After inserting a radio button, you can create multiple options for the radio buttons in two ways. You can either click on the Developer tab or click on the ‘Option’ button from the Insert dropdown again and again. Or, you can copy and paste one radio button to create multiple radio buttons.

Why can’t I find the Developer option in Excel?

In most cases, Excel does not have the Developer tab enabled in the ribbon by default. To enable the Developer tab, right-click on the ribbons and select Customize the Ribbon. In the Excel Options dialog box, check the checkbox for the Developer tab and click OK.

Closing Thoughts

Radio buttons are different from checkboxes and provide unique functionalities of their own. They are a useful feature to know the user validation and use it to perform certain functions and operations.

In this article, we saw how to insert radio buttons in Excel. We also saw how to link the radio button, group them and delete the radio buttons.

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Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA. He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!