Public Google Forms and Spreadsheets for Dummies

Here's step-by-step instructions on how to create and publish a Google spreadsheet, together with a web-based form that makes entries into it.

You could use this for everything from arranging rides to scheduling a party.

• Go to https://docs.google.com
• Click on New and choose spreadsheet.
• Click on the title, "Unnamed Spreadsheet", and enter a title.
• Enter column headings into row 1, across the top.
• Click on the "Share" tab.
• Under "Invite people:" choose "to fill out a form."
• Click on "Start editing your form..."

You'll now see a form with the title you gave the spreadsheet, and a slot for each column.

• Fill in the box below the title, which says "You can include any text or info that will help people fill this out."
  
• Press "Next, choose recipients."

If you want email the form, fill in the To: list. Otherwise, just go on.

Now to embed the form in a web page,

• Click on "Embed", in the upper-right-hand corner.
• Copy the link location to that web page, as instructed.

Next, we publish the spreadsheet, which will change as folks fill out the form:

• Go back to the spreadsheet and click the "Publish" tab.
• Press "Publish now".

It will give you a URL where folks can see the spreadsheet, but that's not what you want yet.

• Click the bottom link, "More publishing options."

A window will pop up called "More published formats."

• Click "Generate URL."
• Copy the link location and paste it into whatever web page you want to display the spreadsheet on.

You now have one web page with a form folks can enter data into, and another that's the spreadsheet to display the data.

Ta-da.