MS Word Help

[summerdays]

At work I often have to fill in paper forms ticking various boxes ... apparently we need to go paperless and I need to fill in the forms online.... but how do I create a word doc to do this....

I need to be able to fill it out and email it to other people. Most of the sentences are fairly standard and reused. It wouldn't need to look the same as currently ... it could end up as a series of bullet points for example, but preferably allowing a free text entry at the end.

Firstly is Word the right thing to do it in? And if so how.... I've got a snow day today and tomorrow so now is a good time to look at it.


So for example if I wanted to select a number of sentences from....

The weather is.... Sunny/cloudy/raining/snowy
Cyclists would be advised to get out there/stay at home under the duvet/fit studded tyres
You are normal/completely insane for cycling in these conditions
Etc


Currently I just tick the relevant sentence and add some additional detail at the bottom of the paper form.

 

[Markymark]

Excel is pretty good for that. You can write lists of possible answers and fix cells to only allow from that list using a dropdown box. It’s called Data Validation

 

[Inertia]

how do you need the information? Would something like Google forms work?

IIRC you can also send the information to an online spreadsheet which you can share.

https://www.google.co.uk/forms/about/

 

[annedonnelly]

Yes, you can do that in Word. It'll depend on what version you have but on mine (2010) the controls are on the Developer tab of the ribbon. That tab is usually hidden so you go to File->Options->Ribbon to turn it on. Then you can pick various types of "input field" to put in your document - text boxes, date pickers, check-boxes, etc.

This link seems to have sensible instructions.

 

[mjr]

Use a web page. Even Google Forms is better than MS Word.

 

[Nibor]

Survey Monkey? https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk

 

[summerdays]

I remember from something else that you only have a limited number of replies from survey Monkey.

Currently investigating some of the other suggestions....

 

[summerdays]

Use a web page. Even Google Forms is better than MS Word.

Just started with Word as that is where the original form with tick boxes was created.

 

[mjr]

I remember from something else that you only have a limited number of replies from survey Monkey.

Currently investigating some of the other suggestions....

Survey Monkey also lie about being accessible to disabled people, basically (Google make similar claims about their reCaptcha physical/cognitive ability test - must be some loophole in US law). I think when I looked a few years ago, lime survey was best and smart survey and qualtrics were OK, but if it's a simple form then self-hosting is usually better if you have the capability.