Google Docs Forms

I have been using google docs for a while now. Mostly the spreadsheets, especially useful for co-authoring stuff with my fiancee like budgets, wedding plans, house stuff etc.

But somehow I never came across Google Docs Forms. Today while reading some http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ I came across a new site they are testing in beta http://stackoverflow.com/ and their beta signup form is a Google Docs Form.

So of course I decided to give it a try. All you need to do is open your google docs (for which you need a google account) and then start a new Form. It is very self explaining how to set up. And you can put as many questions as you like. The questions can be one of 5 types: text, paragraph text, multiple choice, checkboxes, choose from a list or scale 1-n. Once you are happy with your form set-up, you click on a save button. On the bottom of the form editor there is a link that you can give out to people. When anyone submits the form, the entry is saved into an automatically created Google Doc Spreadsheet in your account, ready for you to anlayse, or even program against.

One cool feature is that you can embed the form you create into your own page. Just click on the "More Actions >> Embed" button and it will give you a piece of html to embed into your page. Here below is one that I created myself. Give it a go!