The Beginner’s Guide to Google Forms
Text Source: howtogeek.com
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The Beginner’s Guide to Google Forms
Are you just getting started with Google Forms? Never heard of it before? Either way, here are some tips to help you get going with Google’s powerful form tool and start building surveys and forms online for free.
If you already know about Google Forms, feel free to skip ahead. If you don’t, here’s the crash course. We’ll go over the basics, and get you brushed up on what Google Forms is and how you can start using it right away.
Google Forms is a free survey tool that’s part of G Suite—Google’s complete office suite (although some people refer to it all as Google Docs). The other main services included in the cloud-based suite are Sheets (Excel), Docs (Word), and Slides (PowerPoint).
Google Forms lets you collect information from people via personalized quizzes or surveys. You can then connect the info to a spreadsheet on Sheets to automatically record the answers. The spreadsheet then populates with the responses from the quiz or survey in real-time. This makes Google Forms one of the easiest ways to save data directly into a spreadsheet.
With Forms, you can collect RSVPs, start surveys, or create quizzes for students with a simple online form. You can share your form via email, a direct link, or on social media and ask everyone to participate.
And since Forms is an online tool, you can share and collaborate with multiple people on the same form in real-time.
Before you can use Google Forms, you have to sign up for a Google (an @gmail) account. If you already have one, feel free to move on to the next section. If not, we’ll go over the simplest way to create a Google account and get you set up with Forms.
On the next page, you provide some information—first and last name, username, and password—to create your account.
After you verify your phone number, the subsequent pages require you to provide a recovery email address, your date of birth, and gender. You must also agree to the privacy statement and terms of service. After that, you’re the proud new owner of a Google account.
Now that you have a Google account, it’s time to create your first Form. Head over to the Google Forms homepage and place the cursor on the multicolored plus sign (+) in the bottom-right corner.
Pro Tip: You can type forms.new into the address bar from any browser and hit Enter to create and open a new blank form automatically.
One of the first things you might want to do after you create a new blank form is give it a bit of personality. Google Forms lets you customize the theme and help it stand out by adding an image, color, and font style.
Click the artist’s palette at the top of the screen. From here, you can choose a header image from one of the many stock photos provided (or upload one of your own), the primary color of the form, the background color, and font style.
While customization is lacking when it comes to the theme of forms (aside from being able to upload any image for the header), Google Forms makes up for it with everything else it has to offer.
When you create a Google Form, you can choose the types of questions you want people to answer. Whether you want static answers from a multiple-choice form or essay-length responses, you can create your ideal form in a snap!
Short Answer: Responses only require a few words. You can set rules people have to follow in their answer with data input validation. Great for email addresses or URLs.
Paragraph: Responses require long-form answers of one or more paragraphs. Data input validation is available for this type of response, as well.
Multiple Choice: People choose between a set of options (one per question). You can include “Other” and an option so people can input a short answer. Depending on a person’s answer, you can also send them to a different section of the form.
Checkboxes: Responders choose one or more of a set of options, including the “Other” option for a short answer. Depending on a person’s answer, you can send them to a different section of the form.
Drop-down: People choose their answer from a set of options in a drop-down menu (one per question). Based on the answer, you can, again, send people to another section of the form.
File Upload: This allows the person to upload a file in response to a question. Uploaded files use Google Drive space for the survey owner. You can specify the size and type of files people can upload.
Linear Scale: People can rate your question on a scale that starts at 0 or 1, and ends on a whole number from 2 to 10.
Multiple Choice Grid: This creates a grid from which people can select one answer per row. Optionally, you can limit answers to one choice per column and shuffle the row order.
Checkbox Grid: This option creates a grid from which people can select one or more answer per row. Optionally, you can limit answers to one choice per column and shuffle the row order.
Date: Responder must choose the dat…