How to create an online survey for free using Google Docs

Posted on February 9, 2008 at 6:30 am

Why might you need to create your own online survey? Need to get the opinion of several of your friends or family members about an idea you have? Or maybe you are at the office and want to know what projects people think are the most important for your department? Whatever the case may be, most people have ended up using SurveyMonkey for creating online surveys.

However, there’s another way now that you can create your own online surveys and track the statistics easily online and that’s using Google Docs. They just released a new feature in the spreadsheet program whereby when you go to share the document, you can choose an option to fill out a form.

create online surveysThe best thing about using Google Docs is that you can create a form easily, email it to anyone with an email address, and they can complete the whole survey without having to sign in! They can even fill out the form directly from their email client, no need to bring up a web page at all!

A form is always linked up with a spreadsheet, so if you create a form, then you’ll get a spreadsheet and vice versa. This is because all of the responses are automatically added to the spreadsheet and kept track of there. You can also install an iGoogle widget that will list your recent active forms with the new responses highlighted.

To create a new form, click on New and then click Spreadsheet.

new spreadsheet

Then click on the Share tab at the top right of the new spreadsheet.

share tab

On the Share this document tab, you’ll see a new option called to fill out a form. Go ahead and click on that radio button and you’ll get a new set of options.

create online form

Click on Start editing your form and for the first step, you’ll need to give your form a title and description. Then you can type in a question along with some help text and choose what type of question it will be: textbox, multiple choice, checkboxes, or choose from a list.

forms

The interface is very slick and works fast, no need for page refreshes to add more questions, etc. Everything works while you’re on the same page. You can also re-order the questions in any order you like. After your online survey is completed, you can then choose who to email it out to. Remember they don’t have to have a GMail account and nor will they have to sign into anything.

It’s not a fabulous tool for creating online survey forms, but it definitely gets the job done quickly and easily. I’m guessing that eventually they will come out with form themes that look more professional than just plain black and white. Enjoy! Source: Google Docs Blog

[tags]create survey, make your own survey, create free survey, how to create a survey, make online survey, survey creator, survey creation[/tags]

» Filed Under Google Software/Tips

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Comments

17 Responses to “How to create an online survey for free using Google Docs”

  1. Edwin said on : February 28th, 2008 at 5:21 am

    Bovenstaande tekst is niet bepaald geslaagd Nederlands.
    Waarschijnlijk door middel van een vertaalprogramma samengesteld?


  2. Dr.Narayanan Kannan said on : May 29th, 2008 at 2:15 am

    Thank you so much for letting me know this information. I wanted to create an Online Evaluation form for a forthcoming workshop. While struggled to find a way to do this, this news came as a boon. Thanks to Google again!


  3. alex said on : May 31st, 2008 at 11:18 pm

    I’ve been eying this functionality for a few months. Today, now that I finally want to use it, I can’t find it. It appears that the whole Docs interface has changed in the last few days. There’s a new blue button: Share. When I click on Share -> Share with others, I see the Invite People and then the radio buttons below, but “to fill out a form” is not there. What’s going on?


  4. alex said on : June 1st, 2008 at 12:11 am

    … looks like you can only do this with a spreadsheet.


  5. avinson said on : June 25th, 2008 at 3:46 am

    Create great free online survey at surveylover.com


  6. preaned said on : August 19th, 2008 at 2:25 am

    didnt know that this way would be so viable.. but for most people they probably be using pollograph.com or something.. google docs is just too much for the nerdy!


  7. Dr Ahmed said on : October 30th, 2008 at 2:33 pm

    it’s unfourtunate that you can NOT publish it and invite others ( other than people in your e-mail list) to fill it out! YOU HAVE TO SEND IT BY E-MAIL to get something back!


  8. Jerry Walch said on : July 11th, 2009 at 10:06 am

    With the latest version of Google Docs there is a separate tab for generating a new form. After clicking on “New” you need to click on “Form” and not “Spreadsheet”


  9. Ilia said on : August 20th, 2009 at 3:42 am

    I was so thrilled to find out I could do an online survey with google docs but I was quite disappointed to find out that after I submitted a response to the survey as a test, I could not longer delete that entry. I managed to delete it from the spreadsheet but not the summary, which meant that it would always be part of the survey results if I decided to go ahead with it. There is no flexibility in google docs on that and I would not recommend it.


  10. VitaminSEO said on : September 7th, 2009 at 4:25 am

    There are some useful templates now in Google docs which make setting these up really easy;
    http://docs.google.com/templates?q=&category=7&sort=hottest&view=public&type=forms


  11. Andry said on : November 7th, 2009 at 7:45 am

    Excellent post! Very helpful. I heard about this functionality in Google Docs, but I was looking more info about how it actually work. BTW they now added some themes

    Thanks! :-)


  12. Sal! said on : December 18th, 2009 at 7:51 am

    Thanks for the tip.I use Google docs regularly,but wasnt aware of this feature.This really helped me make an online survey form in 10 minutes flat..Thanks again!!!


  13. Jean said on : January 11th, 2010 at 10:24 pm

    Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I’ve read that google group doesn’t let you make a poll and couldn’t believe google won’t have a way to do it. I am glad I found this information. More reason to love google docs!


  14. Ioan Nicut said on : March 17th, 2010 at 10:20 am

    Thanks for the great information. It is simple indeed and very helpful as it kills the need to add aditional plugins on my wordpress installation.


  15. Lazar said on : June 10th, 2010 at 10:19 pm

    Thanks, and you bring up a good point:The best thing about using Google Docs is that you can create a form easily, email it to anyone with an email address, and they can complete the whole survey without having to sign in! They can even fill out the form directly from their email client, no need to bring up a web page at all!


  16. rattus said on : November 8th, 2010 at 1:27 pm

    thank you for this informative post, it’s very helpful! I will check out google docs to see if we can use it to make an online survey for our thesis :]


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    [...] How to create an online survey for free using Google Docs – However, there?s another way now that you can create your own online surveys and track the statistics easily online and that?s using Google Docs. They just released a new feature in the spreadsheet program whereby when you go to share the document, yo [...]

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