Boolean (Checkbox)

Boolean values represent truth states: either true or false.

Notion represents Boolean values as checkboxes:

• True is represented by a checked box
• False is represented by an unchecked box

True or false Boolean values are usually determined by the outcome of a statement containing a Boolean operator. For example:

10 > 5 // Output: True

"Monkey" == "Banana" // Output: False
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

However, there are also some values in Notion formulas that are inherently truthy or falsy.

The following values in a Notion formula are always falsy:

• false
• 0
• -0
• "" (an empty string)

You can test this for yourself by creating a Notion formula containing this statement, which outputs false:

0 ? true : false // Output: False
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

By contrast, the following will output true:

1 ? true : false // Output: True
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

All values not listed above are inherently truthy, including:

• true
• "0" – a string containing 0
• "false" – a string containing “false”
• "anything" – a string containing any text
• now() – a date (the now function outputs the current date and time as a date object)

You can see proofs of these statements in this example database:

Notion – The all-in-one workspace for your notes, tasks, wikis, and databases.

A new tool that blends your everyday work apps into one. It’s the all-in-one workspace for you and your team

thomasfrank.notion.site

Boolean Operators in Notion

Notion comes with several Boolean operators.

These can be used to perform comparisons between two values (which must share the same data type), outputting a true or false value.

They can be separated into two categories: logical operators and comparison operators.

Logical Operators

Logical operators return a Boolean value, and often allow you to combine and evaluate multiple expressions.

Notion provides three logical operators.

Good to know: Notion is picky about how you must write logical operators. Only the listed symbols will work, and they are case-sensitive.
E.g. You must use and for the and operator – And, AND, and && will not work in Notion.

Operator	Symbol	Function Version	Example
and	and	and()	2 > 3 and 4 < 8
or	or	or()	2 > 1 or 6 > 5
not	not	not()	not empty("Hello")

Comparison Operators

Comparison operators allow you to compare operands that share a data type.

Notion provides six comparison operators:

Operator	Symbol	Function Version	Example
equal	==	equal()	2 == 2
unequal	!=	unequal()	4 != 2
larger	>	larger()	5 > 3
largerEq	>=	largerEq()	4 >= 4
smaller	<	smaller()	6 < 9
smallerEq	<=	smallerEq()	9 <= 9