Help

The Community will be temporarily unavailable starting on Friday February 28. We’ll be back as soon as we can! To learn more, check out our Announcements blog post.

Converting text to checkbox

Topic Labels: Base design
Solved
Jump to Solution
2593 1
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Bryan_Winston
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Is it possible to convert textual data within a column as you change the field type from single line text to checkbox. I’ve uploaded a pre-existing spreadsheet that contained the text “complete” to show the status of processing. I would like to convert the field to checkbox and therefore, convert any data marked complete to a checkbox.

1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
kuovonne
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

Welcome to the Airtable community.

If you convert a single line text field to a checkbox, Airtable will try to determine if the checkbox is selected based on the text.

The following text will convert to :heavy_check_mark: :

  • 1
  • true
  • yes
  • checked

The following will convert to unchecked:

  • 0
  • false
  • no
  • blank
  • random text

If you want to use a different method for having a check box selected I recommend you take a multi-step process:

  1. Create a formula field that examines the existing text field and converts it to one of the above values. For example,
    IF({text field name} = "complete", 1)

  2. Convert the formula field to a checkbox field.

  3. Delete the original text field (if desired).

See Solution in Thread

1 Reply 1
kuovonne
18 - Pluto
18 - Pluto

Welcome to the Airtable community.

If you convert a single line text field to a checkbox, Airtable will try to determine if the checkbox is selected based on the text.

The following text will convert to :heavy_check_mark: :

  • 1
  • true
  • yes
  • checked

The following will convert to unchecked:

  • 0
  • false
  • no
  • blank
  • random text

If you want to use a different method for having a check box selected I recommend you take a multi-step process:

  1. Create a formula field that examines the existing text field and converts it to one of the above values. For example,
    IF({text field name} = "complete", 1)

  2. Convert the formula field to a checkbox field.

  3. Delete the original text field (if desired).