Spreadshit Forms: Forms that can be imported into a spreadsheet

Spreadshit Forms

Spreadshit forms are questionnaires that work a bit like Google Forms — but without Google. You can create forms, send them to users, collect their answers, and aggregate the answers into a spreadsheet. More precisely, into a Spreadshit. Hence, “Spreadshit Forms”.

Spreadshit forms

For more information on the predecessor of Spreadshit Forms, see our publication

Hiep Le, Thomas Rebele, Fabian M. Suchanek: “Open Digital Forms” (pdf)
Demo at Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL/ECDL)

How it works

If you want to fill a questionnaire
  1. Open the questionnaire in Firefox or Chrome.
  2. If you see a message “This file has been corrupted”, it means that the Javascript code has been removed or disabled by the browser. Download the file from the original source to your hard drive. Open it from there. Make sure that JavaScript is enabled, and that no JavaScript blockers (such as Ghostery) interfere with the form.
  3. Fill out the form, and click the button “Click here to save final answer”
  4. Return the saved answer file back to the sender
If you want to create a questionnaire
  1. Open the empty form in your browser (Firefox or Chrome)
  2. Modify the questions to your liking
  3. Click “Save as” to save the form to your computer.
  4. Click “Save questionnaire as” to save the questionnaire (in which the questions cannot be modified) to your computer.
  5. Send the questionnaire file to the user.
If you want to import an answer into a Spreadshit
  1. Open any Spreadshit
  2. Drag-and-drop the answer file(s) into a table.
  3. If you wish, you can then copy/paste the table into a conventional spreadsheet such as Libre Office or Microsoft Office Excel.
Is this really easier than Google forms? Of course it is not! Google Forms is just great! The only reasons to use Spreadshit forms are that (1) you have a trace of who replied what on your computer and (2) you do not give the information to Google. If these are not important to you, better use Google Forms!
See a video!

 

Try it out!

Creating a questionnaire

You can use the following types of fields.
Text
If you leave a field empty or write just a single line, the user can reply with a single line.
Paragraph
If you write two lines of text into the field, the user can enter a paragraph of text.
Date
If you write "date", the user will be asked to enter a date.
Email
If you write "email", the user will be asked to enter an email address.
Number
If you write "x-y", where x and y are positive integer numbers, the user will be asked to enter a number in that range.
Signature
If you write "signature", the user can attach a signature scan. The signature is included in the HTML document as an inline Data URI. Of course, such a signature scan provides no security whatsoever; it is just a gesture.

Terms and Conditions

Spreadshit Form was programmed by Fabian M. Suchanek. It is available under a Creative Commons Attribution License. This means you can use the program for free. You can even build on it, if you credit the author. Finally, the license REJECTS ALL WARRANTIES AND GUARANTEES WHATSOEVER FOR THIS PRODUCT. This is not a professional program, but a personal tool. It may be useful to you — or not. The current version is 2017-04-22.

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