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11 Comments

HTML Form to Sheets

While I was creating landing page for Today I Learned, I was looking for a simple way to collect information ie: emails.

The requirements were:
1. It has to work with static website
2. Easy and quick to get it done

While for my blog I am using mailchimp. That and the tools like that are an overkill. I wanted to do something plain and simple: let users fill the form and give me a way to access the responses (sheets?)

While there seems to be tools that exist that do something similar, I am tempted to create a tool that just does this. HTML form to Google Sheet, and nothing else. Value addition here would be the simplicity, it should take no more than a minute or two to get the whole thing done.

Fellow hackers, can you motivate me and/or challenge me with this idea? To pursue or to not and why!

  1. 2

    Google Forms solves this problem nicely. Free and simple to create your form, and it automatically feeds responses into a sheet for you.

    If you want to style the form embed, do some Googling and you should find some Medium posts that explain a fun little hack :).

    This exact problem actually inspired me to build AnyForm.

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      Oh hey Alex. I did indeed stumble upon AnyForm. Didn't know it was from a fellow hacker.

      This is indeed a good way to rethink the same problem. ie: use the third party forms but find a way to blend it in. I could not give it a try without entering payment information.

      I am a fairly technical person but I could not figure out the whole flow from the home page. Happy to give more inputs if you'd like :)

      And yes, there are ways to use google script to input to forms directly, and as a technical person, I won't mind doing this. The solution I was thinking of creating was more for non technical person and easy-fast to do it.

      1. 2

        Hey!

        AnyForm's flow is as follows:

        1. Click on the plan you want to subscribe to.
        2. Plug in the name of your form service (i.e. Google forms) as well as the custom domain you want for your forms (i.e. forms.yoursite.com)
        3. Wait for us to get in touch — we'll ask what CSS you want for your form and we'll give you a DNS record to make your custom domain live.

        Would love to hear your input on that! Is there a step you're confused about?

        On the topic of "turning a Google Form into a raw HTML form", you should take a look at https://stefano.brilli.me/google-forms-html-exporter/ if you haven't already.

        AnyForm is for putting forms at custom domains and adding automatic custom styling/branding. We handle all the coding and messy stuff for you.

        Stefano's project is for turning a Google Form into a raw block of HTML that you can stick on any page and style however you like. In this case, you need to put that form on a page and add your own custom CSS.

        1. 1

          I see the problem AnyForm is solving. You need to use third party forms but you want them to blend in. And to do that, you create your own wrapper and use a CNAME that my subdomain will point to.

          cool concept indeed. only small potential issue I see is that this might be too technical for someone lacking the background. But this definitely serves the audience with background.

          Solution I was thinking was similar to https://www.indiehackers.com/product/staticforms which is not a third party but a new form service.

          1. 1

            Exactly!

            So you don't actually need much background — our customers simply plug in their 'old' URL and 'new' URL and click subscribe.

            We then send the CNAME record to them.

            The technical ones plug it in themselves.

            The non-technical ones hop on a Zoom with us and we show them exactly how to do it :).

            1. 1

              Haha nice! All the best :)

  2. 1

    I discovered there is StaticForms too by a fellow IndieHacker https://www.indiehackers.com/product/staticforms

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    This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

    1. 1

      Also let me know if I can help you with your survey :D

    2. 1

      It has it's own UI and does not blend well with your site. Can be embedded but will look out of place. Am I missing something?

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        This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

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          Oh and I don't have a solution. I am wanting to create one :)

        2. 1

          Sign up with google -> create a form -> you get a URL to put in HTML form. That's it.

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