Feature request: Checkbox

[areqq]

Question

Is it possible to insert checkbox into cell?

[jmcnamara]

Which type of checkbox do you mean?

None of them are currently supported but I may be inclined to add the newer Checkbox (see below) but not the form style checkbox.

[areqq]

yes, this one

[jmcnamara]

@areqq and @tjpartridge

I've pushed initial support for this feature to main.

You can now use it as follows:

import xlsxwriter

# Create a new Excel file object.
workbook = xlsxwriter.Workbook("checkbox.xlsx")

# Add a worksheet to the workbook.
worksheet = workbook.add_worksheet()

# Create some formats to use in the worksheet.
bold = workbook.add_format({"bold": True})
light_red = workbook.add_format({"bg_color": "#FFC7CE"})
light_green = workbook.add_format({"bg_color": "#C6EFCE"})

# Set the column width for clarity.
worksheet.set_column(0, 0, 30)

# Write some descriptions.
worksheet.write(1, 0, "Some simple checkboxes:", bold)
worksheet.write(4, 0, "Some checkboxes with cell formats:", bold)

# Insert some boolean checkboxes to the worksheet.
worksheet.insert_checkbox(1, 1, False)
worksheet.insert_checkbox(2, 1, True)

# Insert some checkboxes with cell formats.
worksheet.insert_checkbox(4, 1, False, light_red)
worksheet.insert_checkbox(5, 1, True, light_green)

# Close the workbook.
workbook.close()

Output:

There is still some work to be done to ensure that this feature is compatible with Tables and Table formats. Also, it currently modifies a user supplied format (such as light_ref and light_green in the example above) to add the checkbox format property. This potentially could cause issues if the format is used elsewhere. So I will need to add a more robust solution for that. So overall it is good for testing, if you get a chance, but it still has a few small issues to be fixed.

[jmcnamara]

There is still some work to be done to ensure that this feature is compatible with Tables and Table formats.

I fixed this and added some tests. You can now do something like this using Polars (or with just XlsxWriter):

import polars as pl

# Create a Pandas dataframe with some sample data.
df = pl.DataFrame(
    {
        "Region": ["North", "South", "East", "West"],
        "Target": [100, 70, 90, 120],
        "On-track": [False, True, True, False],
    }
)

# Write the dataframe to a new Excel file with formatting options.
df.write_excel(
    workbook="polars_checkbox.xlsx",

    # Set the checkbox format for the "On-track" boolean column.
    column_formats={"On-track": {"checkbox": True}},

    # Set an alternative table style.
    table_style="Table Style Light 9",

    # Autofit the column widths.
    autofit=True,
)

Output:

Also, it currently modifies a user supplied format (such as light_ref and light_green in the example above) to add the checkbox format property. This potentially could cause issues if the format is used elsewhere. So I will need to add a more robust solution for that.

This is probably going to need a reasonable refactoring of the Format code so I am going to tackle that in the next release.

As such I am going to push the current code out in a new release in the next 12 hours.

[jmcnamara]

This feature is available in XlsxWriter v3.2.2.