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Introduction to Form Controls

What Are Form Controls?

Form Controls are objects which you can place onto an Excel Worksheet which give you the functionality

to interact with your models data.

You can use these controls on worksheets to help select data. For example, drop-down boxes, list boxes,

spinners, and scroll bars are useful for selecting items from a list. Option Buttons and Check Boxes allow

selection of various options. Buttons allow execution of VBA code.

By adding a control to a worksheet and linking it to a cell, you can return a numeric value for the current

position of the control. You can use that numeric value in conjunction with the Offset, Index or other

worksheet functions to return values from lists.

Where Are Form Controls?

Form Controls are located on the Developer Tab under Insert Form Control.

I do not have

developer tab…?!?

If you do not see developer tab, do

not worry. You can easily turn it on.

In Excel 2007: Go to Office button >

Excel Options > Popular and check

“Show developer ribbon” option.

In Excel 2010 or above: Go to File >

Excel Options > Customize Ribbon

and check Developer Ribbon in right

side panel.

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You will notice 2 types of Form Controls, being Form Controls and Active X controls.

This article will only be dealing with Form Controls.

How do I insert a form control?

To Insert a Form Control go to the Form Control Menu and click on the Form Control you want to insert.

Now click on the worksheet in the location you want your form control.

Don’t worry about the location or size you can change those later.

What Are The Different Form Controls?

There are several types of Form Controls offering a range of interactivity from a simple display through to

interactive controls which allow multiple selection or interactive selection of values.

Form Control

How it looks?

Description Function

Button Push Button Executes a macro

Check Box Allow selection of non-exclusive options Multiple On/Off options

Combo Box

Drop Down selection Box Select items from a Drop down list

Group Box

Layout element which groups common elements

Nil

Label

A Text label Can be static or linked to a cell

List Box Fixed selection box Select items from a list

Option Button

Allow selection of exclusive options Exclusive Single On/Off option

Scroll bar

Allow Horizontal or Vertical scrolling Increases or decreases a cells value by a fixed amount

Spin Button

Increment/decrement a value by a fixed amount

Increases or decreases a cells in steps by a fixed amount

These are discussed individually below.

Button (Form Control)

The Button Form Control is as its name suggests simply a Button.

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Pressing the Button allows execution of a macro.

The Button has no other controls.

Button Text

You can right click on the button and change the buttons Text (Edit Text) and enter the text you want

displayed on the button.

The Button’s text can be linked to a cell, select the Button, In the formula Bar enter a link to a cell. eg:

=$C$3 and accept. The Button’s text will now change as the contents of the cell C3 change.

You can change the Text Style including Font, Color and Text Direction using the Format Control (Ctrl 1)

option.

Assign Macro

Right click on the Button and select Assign Macro. The Assign Macro dialog will pop up.

Select the macro you want to assign to the button.

Label (Form Control)

The Label Form Control is also as its name suggests simply a Label.

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The Label will display text either fixed or from a linked cell

You can right click on the button and change the buttons text (Edit Text).

The Button’s text can be linked to a cell, select the Button, In the formula Bar enter a link to a cell

eg: =$C$3 and accept. The Button’s text will now change as the contents of the cell C3 change.

Unlike the Button you cannot change the Text Style, Font, Color or Text Direction.

Typically a label is put in front of another Control to explain or add a title to the control.

Labels would rarely be used on a Worksheet as a label as they have limited text format properties. Users

would be better served using either cell text or a Text Box where full text formatting is allowed. Labels

come into use when setting up custom Dialog Forms which are used by VBA applications for custom data

entry or other uses.

Check Box (Form Control)

The Check Box form Control allows selection of a number of non-exclusive options.

That is any number of Check Box controls

may be implemented and they

independently be on or off and have no

relationship to each other.

The Check Box Form Control returns the

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value indicating its status, either True (selected) or False (not selected), to a linked cell.

To link a Format Control to a cell, Right Click the Format Control and select Format Control…

Option Button (Form Control)

The Option Button form Control allows the selection of an exclusive option from a number of alternatives.

That is only one Option Button Form Control may be selected at a time, the remainder are automatically

turned off.

The Option Button Form Control returns the value of the Option Button indicating its status to a linked

cell.

In the Example above the Option Buttons are linked to cell E2.

You only need link one Option Button to cell E2, Excel automatically links the remaining option buttons

to the same cell.

Selecting a Different Option Button automatically deselects the other Option Buttons and changes the

linked cells value

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List Box (Form Control)

The List box allows the selection of one

or more items from a list.

The list is sourced from a Range of cells

in the above case it was F2:F17.

The List Form Control returns an Index

Number or position of the selected item

to the Cell Link, 5 in the example above.

The Input Range and Cell Link are setup

by Right Clicking the control and select

Format Control…

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The Number of items visible in the list box is determined by the size of the list box

If there are more items than will fit in the list box then a scroll bar is automatically added to the list box to

enable there selection.

Combo Box (Form Control)

The Combo Box allows the selection of one or more items from a drop down list.

The Combo Box use is similar to the list box except that it has a drop down selection list instead of a fixed

length selection list.

The list is sourced from a Range of cells in the example below it was F2:F17.

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The List Form Control returns an Index Number or position of the selected item to the Cell Link B10, 9 in

the example below.

The Input Range, Cell Link and size of the drop-down box are setup by Right Clicking the control and

select Format Control…

Spin Button (Form Control)

The Spin Button is a simple toggle button that allows the increase or

decrease of a linked cells value by a certain pre-defined amount.

The Cell Link and Lower, Upper Limits and Step Size parameters

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are setup by Right Clicking the control and select Format Control…

The Lower, Upper Limits and Step Size must be Integers. If you want to increase a cell by fractional

amounts you will need to for example set the range from 0 to 1000 in steps of 1 and then divide the linked

cell by 10 which will give a Range of 0 to 100 in steps of 0.1

Scroll Bar (Form Control)

The Scroll Bar Form Control often referred to as a Slider is a simple linear slider that allows the increase

or decrease of a linked cells value by sliding a bar either left/right or up/down.

Scroll Bars can be placed either horizontally or vertically by dragging the corner.

Scroll bars are incremented by the Step Size by clicking the ends of the bars or dragging the slider or by a

Page Jump Size by using Page up[/down or clicking either side of the slider bar.

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The Cell Link, Lower, Upper Limits, Incremental Change and Page Change parameters are setup by Right

Clicking the control and select Format Control…

The Lower, Upper Limits, Incremental Change and Page Change must be Integers. If you want to increase

a cell by fractional amounts you will need to for example set the range from 0 to 1000 in steps of 1 and

then divide the linked cell by 10 which will give a Range of 0 to 100 in steps of 0.1

Group Box (Form Control)

The Group Box Form Control isn’t really a Form Control at all, as it allows no interactivity.

What it is used for is grouping similar controls so that functional groups of controls can be maintained

and the users flow is directed around a form.

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Using the Form Controls

General Use

The use of the information from a form control is limited by your imagination.

Typical uses are

Selecting items for a chart

Selecting data sets

Moving data sets

Adjusting values in a model

As described in each of the above Form Controls is that the Form Controls do not return a value directly

from a list, they all return either a number or an index number relative to the position of the item in a list.

Example file

Visit course downloads page for this file.

Running Macros

Apart from the Button Form Control whose only purpose is to Run Macro’s, all Form Controls can be

linked to a Macro.

This is done by Right Clicking on the Form Control and selecting Assign Macro.

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It is worth noting that the macro is only executed after the control is released.

eg: If you have a macro linked to a Spin Button, If the Spin Button is held down and hence repeatedly

increments its value, the macro will only be executed after the control is released.

Moving and Resizing Form Controls

You can move and resize form controls as with all other worksheet Objects.

Select the form control by right clicking on it

Use the handles to resize or drag the edges to move the controls

Hint: You can use Alt while dragging or resizing to snap the control to

cell boundaries.

3D, Printing & Locking Form Controls

You can lock Form Controls as well as enable them to be printed or not

Right Clicking the control and select Format Control…

Use the Size, Protection and Properties Tabs as required.

The 3D option enables a 3D version of the Control instead of a flat control, which can add a bit of sparkle

in some instances.

Limitations of Form Controls

Form controls offer a limited set of functions but do those functions very well.

Limitations are Form Controls:

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Form Controls can only increase or decrease by integer numbers

Form Controls only return the index of an item in a list

Form Controls have limited format properties (Font, Color etc)

What are the Active X Controls

Active X controls are like Form Controls on Steroids in that they have a much wider range of properties

than Form Controls.

They also have much better ties to VBA in terms of programmability and have a number of events that can

be accessed programmatically.

The main limitation of Active X controls are that they use a Microsoft Active X component. This means

that if you are sharing your workbook with an Apple Mac user using Excel for Mac these functions won’t

be available as Active X isn’t available on that Platform.

Workbooks with Form Controls will happily work on an Apple Mac.

Other Controls Available in Excel

A number of other Excel objects can be used to add interactivity to your worksheets.

Shapes

These include:

Shapes

Charts

Text Boxes

Word Art

All these can have macros linked to them which effectively act the same as a Button Form Control without

the moving button effect.

A stunning example of using Text Boxes was recently posted at: The Grammy Bump Chart

http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/02/22/the-grammy-bump-chart-in-excel/

Where the Artists Stats Box (Top Left of Chart) is using several Text Boxes linked to cells to show the

Selected Artists Statistics.

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Hyperlinks

Inserting Hyperlinks at strategic locations throughout worksheets provides a great way to simplify

navigation around pages and between pages.

To learn more about hyperlinks, visit below page:

http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/03/31/excel-hyperlinks/