Prepopulating a Google Form

January 12, 2021 8:54 AM

Is it possible to modify the link to a Google Form to include values that will autofill some of the form fields? I do not own the form, I just have to fill it out every day.

There is a form that I have to fill out every day. It includes several fields of contact information that never change, as well as some fields that I need to provide daily values for.

I did not create the form. I do not own the form. The owner of the form will not modify it for me. All I have is the URL of the form. It is a Google Form.

I would like to add arguments to the end of the URL including my contact info, and then use that new URL whenever I access the form, so that I don't have to type in my contact info every day.

Note: because of the way the form fields are named, I can't just use some built-in browser feature to "fill in my contact info".

This is a small problem, but it's a daily annoyance I'd like to be done with.

Thanks!

posted by Winnie the Proust to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Response by poster: Note: I've tried to Google for for this, but all the answers provide instructions for the people who are creating the forms. I'm not that. I'm just using it, over and over again.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 8:55 AM on January 12, 2021

If no one comes up with a way to modify the URL:

The solution that came to mind immediately upon reading your question is a keyboard macro, so when the form loads, pressing a specially-designated key combination (e.g., Alt-Shift-3) would auto-type the information into the form for you. AutoHotKey is the de facto standard macro utility for Windows; I'm not familiar with macro utilities for Apple computers.
posted by davcoo at 9:25 AM on January 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

Here you go
posted by Diddly at 9:49 AM on January 12, 2021 [4 favorites]

Diddly's method may be correct, but it's a lot of sleuthing even for a very simple form
posted by scruss at 10:30 AM on January 12, 2021

A browser extension might work for you like this or this on Chrome.
posted by i_mean_come_on_now at 11:04 AM on January 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

It's about as complex as Diddly's suggestion, but I've used bookmarklets to do this sort of thing. If you know JavaScript/DOM, it's pretty simple but probably a challenge if you don't.
posted by Candleman at 3:10 PM on January 12, 2021

Response by poster: Thank you for all the recommendations. I see the path forward. It's probably not worth the time, but good to know it's possible if I want to make a little project out of it.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 5:32 AM on January 13, 2021