How to Create a Checklist in Google Docs or Slides

Create surveys or to-do lists inside of your Google Docs or Slides file with checklists. With this easy workaround, you’ll be able to insert a simple checklist into your document for others to fill out. Here’s how.

For this guide, we’ll be using Google Docs for the entirety of our examples. However, either method can be used for Google Slides as well.

Fire up your browser, head over to Google Docs or Slides, and open up a document.

Next, click the arrow beside the Bulleted List icon and choose the checkbox option from the list.

Type in some choices as you would any other bulleted list, pressing the Enter key after each one.

After you type out all the answers and want to mark it as your response, double-click the box to highlight it, right-click, and then select the checkmark from the list provided.

That’s it—the checkbox changes into a checkmark, indicating that option as your response. There’s no limit on the number of choices, so repeat this process as you need.

Google Docs or Slides aren’t, by design, meant to be used as a survey or form generation tool. This tip is intended to help you insert a very basic questionnaire into your existing document. If you want to create a beautiful and fully-functional form or survey, check out our beginner’s guide to Google Forms.

If you use Microsoft 365 too, you can also easily insert checkmarks (and clickable checkboxes) in PowerPoint.