Still stuck in the Microsoft world but keep hearing of all the great things that Google Workspace offers? Not ready to spend days recreating materials as Google Workspace files? Now, you don’t have to!
In the education world, up until the last ten years or so, it was a Microsoft world… until Google Workspace (formerly G Suite for Education) emerged and really helped to transform the education and teaching world. However, many of the resources we use and download are still PDFs and Microsoft Word documents despite Google’s climb up the ladder. Cue the tools out there to help, such as the Doc to Form add-on, that allow you to transition smoothly from Word documents or PDFs to Google Workspace files.
Doc to Form is an add-on available for download on the Google Workspace Marketplace that can facilitate and cut back on the process of transferring over information contained on a text document, like a Word document, into a form (quiz) format. It only takes a few clicks to get your selected text transformed into questions.
There are a few preliminary steps considering that Google likes to speak to Google. In other words, first you need to get those Microsoft Word documents adjusted into Google Docs!
As educators, every second spent creating instructional and assessment materials is precious, so we don’t want to waste time repeating the same process over and over. Thankfully, Google has you covered. With a change to just one setting, Google will automatically apply some changes to virtually any Microsoft resource you upload into your drive into Google Form’s love language: Google. Although we are primarily focused on Microsoft Word documents, this setting will apply the same adjustment to other Microsoft files including PowerPoint and Excel files.
If you’ve been using Google for some time now (or even if you are a rookie Google Workspace user), you are most likely familiar with the gear icon, most commonly noticed on Gmail. The gear icon is the almighty settings icon. Within Gmail, it gives you the power to adjust things like the theme of your inbox, your inbox categories, filters, and among other ways to control your primary inbox.
In Google Drive, the gear icon holds similar mighty powers. You can get a better insight into your storage use, increase your storage, apply language settings, open up the opportunity to work offline, and more. Most importantly, the settings options within the gear icon on Drive give you the ability to “convert uploads.”
This setting means that if a Word document is uploaded into Drive, Google will do its magic and convert that Word document into a Google Doc. And, the same settings would be applied to convert a PowerPoint into a Slides presentation, Excel file into a Sheet document, and so on.
Once the convert uploads setting has been marked in the gear icon, you can begin using Google Drive as you normally would to upload files. You would head over to the “New” icon and select the “File Upload” option. Just as it would before applying the settings, the uploaded file (i.e., Microsoft Word document) will live in the folder that you have clicked into.
In other words, there is no need to adjust the organizational system you already have in place for your class files, your school files, etc. As the file is converted automatically, you will notice the .doc or .docx in the title on the Google Doc itself to let you know that this is a file that has been converted.
In order for the “Add-ons” option to appear in the top toolbar on Docs, you must first save that converted Microsoft file (ending with .doc or .docx) as a Google Doc by heading to File > Save as Google Doc. Once this step is complete, you should now see the “Add-ons” tab within the top toolbar. You will also notice that the .doc or .docx has disappeared from your document title.
In the “Add-ons” drop-down menu, along the top toolbar, you will see the option to “Create Form from doc.” If you are not seeing this option in the list that appears, make sure to revisit the Google Workspace Marketplace to make sure that the add-on has been installed to your browser. A checkmark should appear in the top right corner of the add-on tile as seen in the image below.
You will be prompted to give permission to Google to run the add-on on the file, but once permission has been granted, a side menu will appear on the right side of your screen to begin creating the Form.
In the first section of this new menu there will be several options including a requirement to log in, collect username, or options for the creation of an open-ended style question at the beginning of the quiz for Form recipients to enter their name and/or teacher’s name. The collect username option would require that students are logged into Google.
Once these preliminary steps have been completed, you can go ahead and begin creating the question set for your Form (quiz). Options similar to those that would appear if you were creating a quiz on the Google Forms website itself, will appear, including the option to set the answer format to a multiple choice response paragraph or even a checkbox style question. Having the form creator right there in the same tab makes it easy to simply “Ctrl + C” and “Ctrl + V” (copy and paste) to begin building out your quiz using the text already typed in the document.
Once the final question set has been inputted into the form creator pop-up window, the final step is to select the “Create Form” button. From there, Google will work its magic and prepare the form which can be viewed in a new tab, using the Google Forms site.
As students begin taking the quiz, you will still have the same options to view responses as you would if you created the quiz right on the Forms site. You’ll also be able to export student responses to a Google Sheet.
It’s obvious that certain documents are going to make more sense when it comes to converting Microsoft Word documents into Google Forms. Files that were formerly quizzes in Microsoft Word document form, such as matching activities, are a great example.
Here’s an example of a quiz that was originally in Microsoft Word document form:
Now, here’s that same quiz after it’s been converted to a Google Form using the Doc to Form add-on:
Doc to Form is just one example of the many add-ons available for download on the Google Workspace Marketplace. Look for more great tools that can support both face-to-face and virtual learning!
For more tips, tricks, and tools for teaching in and out of the classroom, check out more articles on the Teq Talk blog.
We also offer virtual professional development, training, and remote learning support for educators with OTIS for educators. Explore the technology, tools, and strategies that can spark student success — no matter where teaching or learning are happening.
Teq is an experienced Google for Education Partner. If your school is purchasing G Suite Enterprise for Education or Chromebooks, you may be eligible to receive free PD from Teq as part of the Google Service Offer program.
