PaperSurvey is not just for paper forms. You can also collect responses online through web surveys. This guide walks you through creating and sharing your first web survey.

Step 1: Design your survey

1. Click Create Survey on your dashboard
2. Enter a name for your survey
3. Add questions using the editor

All question types work in both paper and web formats, so you can design your survey once and use it for either collection method.

Step 2: Enable web surveys

1. Open your survey settings by clicking the gear icon
2. Find the Web Surveys section and enable the Activate toggle
3. Save your changes

A unique survey link will be generated automatically (e.g., papersurvey.io/s/abc123).

Step 3: Customize your web survey (optional)

Before sharing, you may want to adjust a few settings:

• Custom URL - Change the survey link ending to something memorable (e.g., customer-feedback-2026)
• Welcome message - Add introductory text that appears before the first question
• Thank you page - Customize the message shown after submission
• Pre-save to browser - Allow respondents to save progress and return later on the same device

For a full guide on these options, see How to Create a Web Survey.

Step 4: Share your survey

Copy the survey link and share it with respondents through:

• Email - Paste the link into an email invitation
• Social media - Post the link on your channels
• QR code - Generate a QR code to use on printed materials
• Website embed - Embed the survey directly on a webpage

Step 5: Monitor responses

As respondents submit the survey, their responses appear in real time in the Responses tab. There is no scanning or verification step needed for web responses, so data is available immediately.

Step 6: Close the survey (optional)

When you have collected enough responses, you can close the survey to stop accepting new submissions. Go to survey settings and change the survey status to Closed.

See How to Close a Web Survey for more options.

Step 7: Analyze and export

View your results in the Analysis tab, or export the data from the Export menu. Web survey responses are stored in the same format as paper responses, so you can combine both collection methods seamlessly.