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April 30, 2009

Themes for Google Docs Forms

You can now choose between 70 themes when you create a form in Google Docs to make it look more attractive. Some of the templates already use themes, so they're almost ready to be published.

"How do you choose a theme? When you're editing a form, click the Theme button to find the right theme and apply it to your form. One caveat: These themes will be visible to your respondents when they fill out the form online, not within email (like Gmail)," mentions Google Docs' blog.



The images are served from googleusercontent.com, an interesting domain that could be used in the future for hosting user-generated content.

22 comments:

  1. Yeah, that's cool, but I NEED PICTURES IN MY FORMS! I am a science teacher and would LOVE to have all of my tests on Google Forms, but can't because I need to use graphs and pictures. Really, how hard can it be?

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  2. @dallasmay:

    You probably noticed that all the questions from your form are added to the first row of a spreadsheet. Try editing that row and you'll see the changes reflected in the form. You can't add images to forms because it's not possible to include images in Google Spreadsheets cells.

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  3. Yeah, that's cool,Try editing that row and you'll see the changes reflected in the form.

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  4. I've been wanting to know if there's a way to style a form to match a website. So far I haven't been able to style inside the iFrame or get the form to post when copied to the local site.

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  5. @Jeff,
    Forms that are embedded (so called 'embeddedform' type of forms can use parameters to set e.g. font, background colour, font colour, link and help colour, interface language and suppression of the title.
    See e.g. this forum thread http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Docs/thread?tid=140769875e920b6c&hl=en

    Note the new themes, when used, (partly) override these parameters.

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  6. i wish that Google allow to customize these themes as we we like

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  7. Like @dallasmay, I would love to have pictures and videos in Google Forms.
    And a way to catch the sender's IP to avoid duplicated answers (in a anonimous form) or a way to automatically save the Google account ID...

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  8. To get pictures in a form, you can embed the form in a Goole sites page, and place the images there.

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  9. i need to change the form title...Plz tell me how to change the form title.....

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  10. I like the forms, but what I really need is to be able to add a bit of text in the middle of the form that isn't a question. Also, it would be great to have multiple scale questions in the same block... eg.

    please rate the following on a scale of 1-5...

    good bad
    question1 1 2 3 4 5
    question2 1 2 3 4 5
    question3 1 2 3 4 5
    question4 1 2 3 4 5

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  11. Here's a tool you can use to customize your form:

    http://sneakysheep.com/google-docs-form-tool.php

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  12. Wonderful list there.. some I've never come across before, very useful, Thanks :)

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  13. @Alex Chitu, I agree with @dallasmay that the ability to use images is important. I understand your reasoning about why we can't CURRENTLY use pictures, but there's no reason Google couldn't allow us to upload images in the future. They really ought to have implemented this already.

    At the very least, we ought to be able to edit the themes, or create our own themes, so we can at least have an image in the header of the form.

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  14. My embedded form shows up...but the theme is only partly there...only after a respondent clicks on "RETURN TO FORM" do the actual themed graphics show up. Anybody know why?

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  15. is it possible to create a theme!? I really wanted something new for my form!

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  16. Another vote for images. This is an incredibly powerful tool but embarrassing for use professionally or institutionally if you can't include your branding.

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  17. Is it possible to create your own theme in google docs?

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  18. Já é possível colocar imagens em formulários do Google Docs? Por favor, alguém de responda.

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  19. how will i add my own image in header of a theam ?

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  20. I too would like to be able to create my own theme for my forms. We are currently using the forms as online registrations for events/trainings. This has worked out very well for what we need and is very user friendly. However, some of the theme options are not very professional looking and I would like to create my own theme. Is there any way that would allow us to create a theme, say in MS Publisher, and then upload it into the themes? I feel very limited as to what I can use for a theme for the form because of the limited number of professional looking themes. Many of them look more like something a soccer mom's club might use to survey parents or something. They just aren't something a professional office is going to use.

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