Thanks, Dave for the ideas - but I'm still stuck, and I'm about to lose it. Here's the code that I've generated:

} elsif ($type =~ /check/) {
            my %hash = ();
            $type =~ s/check/checkbox/;
            print "$english:\n";
            (my $values, my $labels) = split (':',$params[0]);
            my @checks_list = split (';',$values);
            my @clabels_list = split (';',$labels);
            @hash{@checks_list} = @clabels_list;
            foreach(@checks_list) {
                my $index=index $real_fields{$name},$_;
                if ($index != -1) {
                    print $q->b('This should be checked!');
                    print $q->checkbox(-checked=>'checked', -name=>"$n
+ame", -value=>"$_", -label=>"$hash{$_}");
                } else {
                    print $q->checkbox(-name=>"$name", -value=>"$_", -
+label=>"$hash{$_}");
                }
            }
            print $q->br();
}
[download]

This still does not give me the right HTML code! The really weird thing is that here is an example of what I get:

What kind of support? <b>This should be checked!</b><input type="check
+box" name="form_assist" value="loan" />Loan<b>This should be checked!
+</b><input type="checkbox" name="form_assist" value="grant" />Grant<b
+r />
[download]