Using Microsoft Excel 2010, I noticed two kind of controls that can be inserted into a document: Form Controls and ActiveX Controls.
What is the difference between them?
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Be careful, in some cases clicking on a Form Control or Active X Control will give two different results for the same macro - which should not be the case. I find Active X more reliable.
One major difference that is important to know is that ActiveX controls show up as objects that you can use in your code- try inserting an ActiveX control into a worksheet, bring up the VBA editor (ALT + F11) and you will be able to access the control programatically. You can't do this with form controls (macros must instead be explicitly assigned to each control), but form controls are a little easier to use. If you are just doing something simple, it doesn't matter which you use but for more advanced scripts ActiveX has better possibilities.
ActiveX is also more customizable.
It's also worth noting that ActiveX controls only work in Windows, whereas Form Controls will work on both Windows and MacOS versions of Excel.
Source: Stackoverflow.com