Ash Nallawalla is a consultant enterprise SEO with a long background in large companies with complex websites. He is a published author of several books and thousands of magazine articles.
If you’ve ever tried to build a visually clean checklist in Microsoft Word using a serif font like Bitter, you’ve probably run into this problem: standard Unicode checkbox symbols render too small. Even the usual suspects ☐, ◻, □ look tiny and misaligned next to body text.
Here’s the fix: use Segoe MDL2 Assets, a built-in Windows font that contains large, crisp checkbox icons designed for UI elements. With one quick setup, you can create reusable checklist styles that look professional, scale well, and work perfectly with any body font.
Why Segoe MDL2 Assets Works
Segoe MDL2 Assets is a system font used by Windows to render interface icons. It includes a large hollow checkbox glyph that’s visually balanced and clean. Unlike emoji or shaded squares, it renders consistently across Word documents and prints beautifully.
Step-by-Step: Create a Large Checkbox Bullet Style in Word
1. Open the “Define New Bullet” dialog
Go to the Home tab
Click the dropdown next to the Bullets icon
Choose Define New Bullet…
2. Click “Symbol…”
This opens the symbol picker.
3. Manually enter the font name
In the Font box, type:
Segoe MDL2 Assets
(You won’t find it in the dropdown — you must type it manually.)
4. Scroll to find the checkbox symbol
Look for a large, clean, hollow checkbox.
It’s usually near the top third of the grid.
Select it and click OK.
5. Save as a reusable style
Right-click any paragraph using your new bullet
Choose Styles → Save Selection as a New Quick Style
Name it something like:
Checklist – Large Box
6. Set your body font to Bitter
Select the checklist text and apply Bitter as the font.
Your bullet stays large and clean, while your text uses your preferred typeface.
Result
You now have a checklist that looks like this:
…and it will indent cleanly across levels if you adjust the list formatting.
Bonus: Fixing Indentation for Sub-Items
If your second-level items don’t indent properly:
Right-click the item → Adjust List Indents…
Set Bullet position and Text indent to your preferred spacing
Reapply the checkbox symbol if needed
This ensures sub-items align visually and maintain the same checkbox style.
Why This Method Beats Unicode Hacks
No shading or emoji artifacts
Works with any body font
Scales cleanly across print and digital
Easy to reuse as a style
Professional appearance for publishing, documentation, or editorial workflows
If you want to add a second bullet level with a filled checkbox or a tick icon, you can define a multilevel list using the same Segoe MDL2 Assets font.
There is an option there to close your account, which is irreversible. This URL is impossible to find on your own, as they want you to chat with an agent. I have not had any domains there for some years, anyway.
They refunded the wrongly billed domain that was not in my name. I don’t want to lose another day on problems not of my making, so leaving was the best option.
If your WhatsApp connections are in India, there’s a good chance that you have come across a meme like this. There are plenty of patriots in India, which is a good thing for any country, and some are still fighting the British any way they can. Sometimes, this involves fabricating or bending the truth. By placing inside the container of an image, it becomes easier to circulate. Never let facts get in the way of a good story.
Questionable document.
Even people such as Harsh Goenka tweeted that image:
In the pre-independence days, Indians were not allowed to sit on the chair while waiting for a British official unless he had this certificate.
Do reflect……those who take our independence for granted! pic.twitter.com/gAXiRebMCo
Is the above certificate genuine? The position of Kursi Nashin was real, but can you decipher the signature? The the Deputy Commissioner of Delhi District in July 1887 was G.W. Rivaz. He held the position from July 16, 1887, until August 22, 1887. He was preceded by C.M. Rivaz and was succeeded by Edward Brien. The certificate is dated 1 July 1887, while the signature looks like “Brien”. Perhaps this matter was trivial enough for the certificate to be prepared and put aside until Brien had time to sign and issue it.
Who Was Ram Narain?
Ram Narain, son of Sheo Parshad was a prominent figure in Delhi during the late 19th century. He was a Banker and Honorary Magistrate in Delhi.
Ram Narain was a well-known member of the Aggarwal community and came from a family of influential bankers. The family was also active in civic and social affairs. His father, Sheo Parshad, was also a prominent citizen.
Records of Ram Narain, son of Sheo Parshad, appear in:
District and Provincial Gazettes: These documents often listed notable residents and their civic roles.
Official Correspondence: Letters and reports from British officials in the Delhi district often mentioned him in his capacity as a banker or honorary magistrate.
Genealogical and family histories of the Aggarwal community.
His role as a Banker and an Honorary Magistrate would have made him an important figure in the financial and legal life of Delhi during that period.
Kursi Nashin – Noun masculine. One entitled to a seat in a Darbar, or to the honor of a chair.
Samples of this Certificate
Here are some examples found online.
Example of a kursi nashin from LahoreExample from Delhi (1)
Reductio ad Absurdum
Absurd example of a fabricated kursi nashin
The last, absurd example of the certificate shows a few errors in the mind of its creator:
King George V was a mere 22-year-old prince in 1887, when Queen Empress Victoria was on the throne, and his dad the Prince of Wales and the future Edward VII was getting old, waiting for his mum to pass on.
The East India Company had been dissolved in 1883 and removed from the scene in 1858.
No certificate had “British Raj” on it.
Other Citations
Here is a citation of a scholarly text.
SINGHA, RADHIKA. “Punished by Surveillance: Policing ‘dangerousness’ in Colonial India, 1872–1918.” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 49, no. 2, 2015, pp. 241–69. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24495402. Accessed 17 Aug. 2025.
Magistrates were advised to ensure that the summary authority vested
in them by sections 109-110 was displayed publicly and ritualistically,
to replenish their authority at outposts of rule. Around November, as
the days became delightfully crisp, the district magistrate would go off
on an inspection tour of police stations, ordering thanedars in advance
to round up the bad characters. It was with the greatest approval that
the Indian Police Commission (1902-1903) cited James Monroe’s
account of how, as magistrate of Jessore, he had conducted enquiries
into bad-livelihood:
I rode out to the spot…. They (the villagers) all sat down and I commenced to
record their depositions on oath …. I had no difficulty in getting respectable
Brahmins, Purohits, traders, etc., to state what they knew.. .the man was
undoubtedly tried by a jury of his countrymen, the Magistrate’s order being
merely the channel…. The accused could point out his field if he said he
lived by cultivation; he could produce his employer if he said he was a daily
labourer … .53 Such occasions gave meaning to the distinctions which the colonial administration conferred on the loyal and respectable, among them the kursi nashin (those holding certificates), which entitled them ‘to the Courtesy of a seat when visiting officers and Gentlemen’. On-the-spot
enquiry was supposed to act as a check on the thanedar’s account, but it
also allowed him to dispose of all section 109-110 cases in one sweep,
avoiding the expense and trouble of dragging suspects and witnesses
to a distant court.
In his book Landlord Power and Rural Indebtedness in Colonial Sind, historian David Chessman discusses this, saying, “The British administration introduced a special bench magistrate system to support good governance and writ of law. They were also recognised as chair holders or Kursi Nashin.”
Kursi Nashin background, as explained by Sarah Ansari
The term originates from Sufi saints and the seats they were given in Mughal courts. The British Collectors and Commissioners replaced the Mughal darbars. A Commissioner’s Kursi was considered a higher honour than a Collector’s Kursi.
You will find a few Bench Magistrates in other parts of India, while the Kursi Nashin title was used in the North and North-West.
Bench Magistrate Rao Bahadur Bhawoo Mansaram of Bombay, an invitee to the Delhi Durbar of 1911.
The title of Bench Magistrate carried on well past Independence.
A Bench Magistrate in Andhra Pradesh in 1957.
Therefore, the silly claim by patriots that Indians needed a piece of paper to sit down in front of a British administrator is false.
Handy Meme
Please forward this meme to your WhatsApp groups and add some objectivity to WhatsApp University.
Shareable meme to spread awareness of the real meaning of a Kursi Nashin.
Added: I found a recent article about this with more references:
