Changing display of data collection page

[Ross Kerr]

Hello,

I'm using Kobotoolbox on the humanitarian response server they have set up. Is it possible to modify the layout of the data collection pages? I'd like to change the CSS or HTML so that I can easily print it out onto fewer numbers of pages.

If it's not possible on their servers, if I set up Kobotoolbox on a paid server, would I be able to change the Enketo layout?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Ross

[Tino Kreutzer]

Hi Ross,

I'm copying here part of what I wrote to your separate question earlier. If I understand you correctly you’d like to have a more compact way of inputting the data of your log sheet in order to print it, say, on a single page. You can use the Grid Theme option. Here is an article that explains how to use it. You won’t be able to customize it with HTML and CSS but it is quite flexible with regards to how your form is displayed. Unfortunately this mode is not yet viewable in previews but will be visible once you’ve deployed the form in the live data collection form.

Keep in mind also the appearance options for multiple select questions, such as minimal or horizontal. Test them in the preview to see what they look like.

There are no paid options with KoBoToolbox - all accounts are free. To have complete control over the code you could of course host your own version (though it requires a fair bit of technical knowledge) or run a local version of the software on your computer. This would allow you to define your own Enketo themes as well. We are hoping to expand the themes available for web forms and potentially allow users to customize their own themes eventually.

Best,
Tino

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[Ross Kerr]

Hi Tino,

Thanks so much for your helpful reply. Switching to Grid Theme has helped condense the information displayed for each page by a several pages. The issue I'm running into now is that the "minimal" appearance setting expands to the largest setting when I attempt to print in Chrome. This pushes the next box down, and does not appear in the page itself, only when I try to print.

When I print in IE, the colums are broken and go to the next line arbitrarily. Right now I'm looking for a way to print what I see on the screen when I have a nicely laid out grid form. When I click the print icon on Enketo, the boxes have more issues with breaking than regular print function in the browser. I printed the Grid Theme example form, and there were none of these issues.

Maybe this is a question more for the Enketo forum at this point, but any help would be appreciated. I've attached an example screenshot with enough details to show the box issues I'm seeing.

Thank you,

[Tino Kreutzer]

Hi Ross,

Thanks for sharing this. I can confirm this is a bug in how grid theme looks in the print view of Enketo web forms, and that we'll try to have this fixed ASAP in the coming days. This is also happening on Chrome. 

The print view normally looks just like the web view, plus it breaks nicely across pages and fits into the margins.

Best,

Tino

[Martijn van de Rijdt]

We have now discovered this is related to not putting questions inside groups. You can avoid the issue by always placing questions inside groups. See your corrected form: https://wdcvg.enketo.org/webform (temporary link).

I'm not 100% sure if we can support non-full-width questions that are not inside a group, but we'll try.

Cheers,
Martijn

[Ross Kerr]

Awesome, this fixes a lot of the issues I was facing with broken-looking questions in print.

Is it possible for me to download the xls source to this form so I can take a look?

Also, when I print, the questions which would normally be hidden by skip-logic are revealed. Is there a way to hide these questions when printing? The multiple-choice question also switches from minimal mode to the most expanded mode when printing, which I'd like to change.

Sorry for so many questions. I'm required to keep paper records, and I'd like to use a digital solution, but only if I can keep it at the same level of paper usage.

Thanks for your help!

[Martijn van de Rijdt]

Hi Ross,

I actually amended the XForm itself so that would be of little use. But in XLSForm it was the equivalent of just adding a row with type="begin group", name="group", and no no label, at the beginning of the form and a row with type="end group" at the end of the form.

Those two print view tweaks are not available at the moment, but this is very interesting feedback. Printing an empty form for data collection could be different from printing a record. Right now, the feature is designed with the former in mind.

Cheers,
Martijn

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[Ross Kerr]

Cool, thanks for the tip on editing the form to get groups.

There's definitely differences that I've encountered. If you were to work on options for people printing paper records, I would suggest the following:

* Height setting for text boxes, and/or additional feature to extend boxes to accommodate input text

* Ability to adjust margins for the overall document

* Ability to adjust font-size

* Choices in display say the same in print format as in web form format

I'll see if this will be useable with the current features with some tweaking to the form. There are many, many organizations that serve marginalized populations who would benefit from this software, but would not be able to because it does not yet output to a print format that is readily customizable. Many organizations work with licensing agencies that still rely on paper documentation or some easy and readable format for digital review.

Just something to consider! The work you all do is great, and I'm so glad it's out there.

Ross