Content Controls for use on the Mac

Charles K. Kenyon	Version 24.09
http://addbalance.com/word/download.htm#ContentControlsMac

Purpose

The Mac desktop version of Word has no controls for the Content Controls and Document Property Content Controls introduced with Word 2007. These controls do work on the Mac, but you can’t insert or edit them except by using vba. They can be copied and pasted, though, and continue to work. This template has these controls available for copying and pasting. In addition it has them in two AutoText entries.

You may also want to look at Content Controls for macOS by John Korchok.

See also Date Picker in Word formatting the output date. They give vba to insert directly in the Mac OS.

How to Use

You can create a new document based on this or open the template directly and copy the controls you want for use in another document.

Simply use this like you would any other Word template.

You can use this as a Global Template so that the AutoText entries are available in any other document or template on your system.

You can use this as a Global Template in Word. It should be placed in your Word Startup Folder. Then the AutoText Entries will be available whenever you use Word.

Part 1 – Document Property Content Controls

Below are Word’s “document property content controls.” These are found under the Insert Tab > Quick Parts in Word for Windows. They are not found in Word for the Mac as of this writing but will work in Word for the Mac as described in the page Repeating Data Using Document Property Content Controls and Other Mapped Content Controls. If copied and pasted from this template, they will work in Mac documents. Preferable is to develop templates in the Windows environment because doing so will let you rename these for use in your document. My understanding is that these work in Word for the Mac Versions 2011 and 2016 and later.

For adding/editing Content Controls directly in the Mac interface, see Content Controls for macOS by John Korchok. and Date Picker in Word formatting the output date.

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Part 2 – Content Controls

This is about the controls on the Developer Tab that are not available in the Mac versions as of this writing (4 July 2024). See above for John Korchok’s free Add-In.

On the PC they are as shown in the red box below.

These are the:

Rich Text Content Control

Click here to enter text.

Plain Text Content Control

Click here to enter text.

Picture Content Control

Building Block Content Control

(This should not work on a Mac because Mac does not yet use Building Blocks other than AutoText. I have set it for AutoText in the hope that it may work for that.)

Choose a building block.

Checkbox Content Control

☐

Combo Box Content Control

Choose an item.

Drop-Down List Content Control

Choose an item.

Date Picker Content Control - default format

Click here to enter a date.

Date Picker Content Control – formatted dddd, MMMM d, yyyy
i.e, Thursday July 4, 2024

Click here to enter a date.

Not included

I did not include the repeating Section Content Control nor the Group Content Control in this because I can’t figure out how they could be used without vba or John Korchok’s add-in.

AutoText – Version 24.09 and later

I have put the above list in a custom building block gallery. You can try typing the following and pressing F3 (or Fn+F3) to see if they insert: They will in Windows versions beginning with Word 2010.

_DocProp _Doc

There is a companion template available for download that has them in the regular AutoText gallery as individual entries. The link to download that is on my page on Repeating Data Using Document Properties Content Controls and Other Mapped Content Controls toward the bottom of the page in the section on the Macinosh.

Version 24.06 These are now AutoText rather than in the Custom Building Blocks Gallery

The mapped Content Controls are in the AutoText entry _DocProperty

The other Content Controls are in the AutoText entry _ContentControlsWindows

If this is loaded as a Global Template, Type the one of the above names (including the underscore) and press F3 (Fn+F3 on many computers) to insert the complete list.

Version 24.08

Added Date Picker CC with Thursday, July 4, 2024, formatting

Added Publish Date Document Property Content Control

Updates, if any, can be found on my downloads page.

Warranty — As Is

This is distributed without warranty or promises of any kind. I do not know of any harm to come from using this but I have not tested it on a Macintosh system and am relying on information from others that it is helpful.

Distribution

This is shareware. It may be redistributed and copied so long as distributed as a whole and without charge.