Would you like to create a questionnaire, sign-up form, quiz or other type of form that people can fill out on their computer? If so, here are some general instructions on how to create a form using Microsoft Word 2011 on your Mac. Once you’ve created the form you can distribute it as an email attachment or via a web site. The recipient could then complete the form on his or her computer and return it to you. Microsoft has instructions about how to create interactive forms in Word 2008, Word 2004 and Word X. Here are some pointers to how to create a form using Word 2011.

By default Word 2011′s Form Control features are hidden. To make them visible you have to enable the Developer tab on the Ribbon. Here’s how to do this:

• Open a new document in Word 2011.
• Click on the Word menu and select Preferences.
• Click the Ribbon button on the bottom row on the right-hand side.
• In the Customize section, scroll through the list and insert a check mark next to Developer.
• Click the OK button.
• Click on the Developer tab on the Ribbon and you’ll see the Form Controls as depicted below.

You can now use these controls in a document. Let’s look at how to use the Text Box, Combo Box and Check Box.

The Text Box lets the form-filler type in their own answer. Click the Text Box option to insert a Text Box into your Word document. Double-click on this Text Box to control its options. For example, you could set a Maximum Length for the recipient’s answer.

The Check Box lets you create a box that can be checked by the form-filler.

The Combo Box lets you enter a list of choices that will appear in a drop-down list. The form-filler can select only one choice. After adding a Combo Box to your Word document, double-click it to be able to enter the choices that you want to offer.

The Protect Form button is very important. After you’ve finished your document click the Protect Form button. This button locks the document so it can’t be edited. In other words, it turns the document into a fillable form. Once you’ve protected the form you’re ready to distribute it to others.

Below is a picture of a sample document which demonstrates the Text Box, Combo Box and Check Box.

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I recently discovered a bug in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac. If you insert a movie file into a PowerPoint presentation and you’re using the older .ppt file format, the link to the movie breaks when you close the file. I’ve confirmed that this problem occurs with .wmv and .mov movie files, and I assume it occurs with any other type of movie file. I’ve had a couple of clients encounter this bug. I reported this problem to Microsoft, but it hasn’t been fixed as of the time of this writing. There is an easy solution to this problem. Use PowerPoint 2011′s native .pptx file format instead of the older .ppt file format.

Here’s what I did to fix the problem:

1. Open the .ppt PowerPoint file.
2. Go to the File menu and select Save As
3. In the Format section, select PowerPoint Presentation (.pptx)
4. Click the Save button. This will convert the presentation from .ppt format to the newer .pptx format
5. Go to the slide where you’d like to place a movie.
6. Go to the Insert menu and select Movie and then Movie From File
7. Navigate to the folder on your Mac which contains the movie file you want to insert into your presentation.
8. Select the movie file and click the Insert button.
9. Go to the File menu and select Save.

The movie has now been imported to your presentation and will be saved within your PowerPoint file. You can check the size of your PowerPoint .pptx file to see that it has grown significantly now that the movie is saved inside it. When I was figuring out what the problem was I noticed that the file size of the .ppt file didn’t grow after I inserted the movie and saved the file. This told me that it wasn’t working properly. I also knew that I’d seen this feature work in other PowerPoint 2011 presentations. I then realized that the difference was that some files were .ppt files while others were .pptx files. That’s when I realized that this insert movie feature failed to work whenever I used the .ppt file format.

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You can use Apple’s infrared (IR) remote control to control slideshows in PowePoint 2004, PowerPoint 2008 and PowerPoint 2011. Here are some instructions for getting this setup. PowerPoint 2008 and PowerPoint 2011 both include support for Apple’s remote. PowerPoint 2004 does not natively have this capability. Instead, you need to use one of the third party applications described in this other article. Personally, I’ve used the free iRed Lite.

First, here’s a little background. Starting in 2005, Apple started to ship remote controls with their iMac G5 computers. They then included it with MacBooks and MacBook Pros as well as the Mac mini. Apple’s intended users to use them to control FrontRow which lets user view movies (DVDs), photos and music. I think Apple must have realized that few people actually used the remote controls so they stopped including them with new Macs but they continue to sell the remotely separately for about $20. In 2009 they replaced the original white plastic remote and with a taller, thinner aluminum version. The remotes do have some uses beyond controlling FrontRow. Most commonly, I see them used to control PowerPoint slideshows. For a more thorough history of the Apple Remote check out this Wikipedia article. To learn about third-party products that allow the remote to control more applications and extend its capabilities in other ways, check out this article.

Here are instructions on how to setup the Apple Remote to control PowerPoint 2008:

• Hold your remote control a few inches from your Mac.
• Simultaneously, press the Menu and Next (right-point arrow) buttons for 5-10 seconds.
• Open your PowerPoint presentation and click the Slideshow button to put it into slideshow mode.
• Press the Forward and Back buttons to move through the slideshow. Pressing the Pause/Play button will also advance to the next slide.

If you ever want to unpair your Mac from a given remote you can go to the Apple menu, select System Preferences and then Security and click the Unpair button.

I should also mention that the IR receiver is on by default in all Macs. This means that other people could walk up to your Mac, pair a remote with it and start to control it. This isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it could cause confusion. What really causes confusion is when there are multiple Macs in the same room and one person suddenly starts to use one of Apple’s IR remotes. The remote starts to control all of the Macs simultaneously. I assume this only happens if the Macs have previously been paired with another Apple remote. In these situations it’s useful to know that the Security System Preference pane mentioned above lets you check a box to disable the IR receiver in your Mac.

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Have you received a file whose name ends with .docx or .xlsx and been unable to open it on your Mac? These files were created by either Word 2007 and Excel 2007 for Windows or Word 2008 and Excel 2008 for Mac. Thus, one way to open these files is using Office 2008. If you owned this then you wouldn’t have questions about how to open these files, and you wouldn’t be reading this article. Here’s information about two other ways to open .docx and .xlsx files.

Option 1 – Use Microsoft’s free OpenXML Converter. It requires you to have an updated copy of Office 2004 as well as Mac OS X 10.4.3 or higher. This option is the focus of this article. See below for details.

Option 2 – Use Apple’s Pages or Numbers application. They are part of iWork. I believe iWork ’07 or newer is required.

To determine which version of Mac OS X you’re using, you can go to the Apple menu and select About This Mac. The version will be listed in the window that appears.

Go to your Applications folder to see if you have Microsoft Office 2004 installed. Look for the Microsoft Auto Update application as well. Run this application repeatedly until it indicates that all updates have been installed.

Finally, download the OpenXML Converter using this link. On this page, click the yellow “Download Now” button. Then on the next page, you’ll need to select which language version you want from the drop-down menu. After the disk image (.dmg) is downloaded on your Mac, you’ll need to open the disk image and then run the installer package (.pkg) file. Once you’ve finished installing this converter simply double-click on a file whose name ends in .docx, .xlsx or .pptx and the OpenXML converter will automatically be invoked in the background to open the file in Word, Excel or Powerpoint.

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