Author: Neeraj Agarwal

Even if you are a recruiter who needs to get all applicants’ resumes or a teacher who wants to collect students’ homework assignments, you all require a file uploading button in your form. Using this option, your respondents can easily add the document to their form during submission whether it is resumes, cover letters, photos, spreadsheets, and more with form entries.

File Upload Option in Google Forms

Basically, Google Forms is a good choice for users if they want to enable the file uploading option for form submitter. With it, users can easily upload attachments like document, presentation, spreadsheet, drawing, PDF, image, video and audio files in forms. But when you create a form with a file upload query, you need to consider several things like the form owner should have enough storage space in his/her Google Drive and respondents need to be signed into their Google accounts for responding.

Some of the limitations of Google Forms include:

• It doesn’t give permission to upload folders in the form so you can upload only one file at a time.
• Only signed-in users can upload files because the responses are saved in Google sheets.
• Its maximum file size limit is 10MB per form. Nevertheless, it includes the maximum cumulative options for submission like 1GB, 10GB, 100GB, and 1TB that can be selected from the settings.
• The uploaded files required to have different names for quick sorting (the form owner can specify how exactly the files should be named).

If you have just started, Google Forms is the best solution for you to collect information from many people through uploading fields. But if you want to collect unlimited files and media through your online forms then you can switch to Pabbly Form Builder. With this, you can handle unlimited files and makes your complications of file uploading easier.

Steps for uploading files in Google Forms

Step1: As a form creator, all you need to do is to create a form as usual and enter the necessary details like name and description. After that, you have to select the ‘File Upload’ option from the drop-down menu to add the upload field in the form.

Step 2: Click on the drop-down menu and select the File Upload option from the question type.

Step 3: Inside the file upload question, you’ll find several options such as – specific file type, max number of files, and max file size. You can select the specific file types by toggling the switch of ‘Allow only specific file types’. Also, you can choose the maximum number of files that a user can upload at once.

Step 4: In the ‘File upload’ parameters, maximum file size (from 1 MB to 10 GB) options are available. So, you can determine the maximum file-size up to which your Google Forms can continue collecting attachments.

Step 5: Once the button is added, your respondents will be able to upload their files to the form. After that, you can view your form by clicking the eye-shaped preview icon button available at the top-right corner.

Let’s see how you can add file upload option into your form via Pabbly Form Builder-

Here’s a guide on how you can build your own File Upload Forms in a few minutes via Pabbly Form Builder.

Step 1: Create your form by clicking the plus (+)/create new form option. Also, you can edit the pre-built templates as per your requirements.

Step 2: After adding any question to your form you can select the ‘File upload’ option to enable the user (form submitter) to upload attachments.

Step 3: Next, when you click on the upload field section, multiple customization options will get appear. Using this section, you can easily design the form fields and drag them to rearrange the order on your form.

With Pabbly Form Builder, you can easily add upload field functionality in your form in just 3 simple steps without any complications. And it lets your users upload unlimited files along with their form submission.

Conclusion

Hopefully, the suggested implementation gives the client a lot of flexibility to upload files in forms. You can include one or multiple file upload buttons in your web forms and receive files from anyone whether it’s big or small files.
If you are looking for a way to quickly create forms with the upload field then Pabbly Form Builder is the best bid for you. It gives an easy way to manage files and ensure safekeeping for your files.

You May Also Like To Read:

• How to create dynamic questions in Google Forms?
• How to track Google Forms submissions in Google Analytics?

We all know that the “free of cost” Google Forms have delighted us at first due to many reasons like its logic threading functionality, unlimited free forms, and responsiveness. But as soon as we encounter its drawbacks, it must have taken us aback.

Believe it or not, but this free platform restricts you with many important features such as limited design customization, lack of SSL security, conditional logic, etc.

Out of this list, one such limitation of Google Forms is the restricted file upload option. It allows you to upload files from 1 MB to 10 GB only. So, you can not upload more than this.

Further, for uploading files to Google Forms, you need to perform a lot of workarounds that involve complicated scripts and other methods.

Now, as soon as you come across these drawbacks, it must have taken you aback from using Google Forms. So, you must be wondering how you can allow your website visitors to upload more than 10 GB file attachments to your forms, that too very easily.

Is there a better alternative that can help you to collect files from your form?

Now that you have decided to get over the Google Forms, fortunately, there are a handful of pretty great alternatives to it. And, they offer many great options for file upload that you can try. The one best alternative of it would be Pabbly Form Builder. It is a sophisticated and more focused form builder that offers premium features like unlimited file upload, submissions, etc, that a free platform like Google Forms just can’t.

Pabbly Form Builder

Pabbly Form Builder is the only form builder that does not restrict you to use any of its features. It is the cheapest and most effective form creator that offers features like unlimited submission, payment collection, etc.

Yes, you heard it right!

Pabbly Form Builder is an inclusive tool that comes with great file upload capabilities. Unlike Google Forms, it does not restrict you to upload files by superimposing limits on it. It allows your clients to upload unlimited files with any size as many times as they want.

Let’s understand how Pabbly Form Builder stands out from others.

What sets it apart??

There are a lot of reasons behind calling Pabbly Form Builder the best tool for providing file upload option. Some of the functionalities of this alternative to Google Forms involve:

• Unlimited File Upload: There are no limitations to the size, number, and type of files that can be uploaded on a form. This gives you the flexibility to receive as many files as you want on a form.
• Anyone Can Upload Files: While Google Forms has a file upload option, it still requires anyone completing your form to be signed in to a Google account. This leaves out those who may not have a Google account and introduces a barrier to getting answers from your respondents. But, with Pabbly Form Builder, your clients do not require to sign in for uploading files.
• Move Files To DropBox: Pabbly Form Builder allows you to actually move the files from its database to your DropBox account.

After reading all these, you should be more than ready to create your first form with a file upload option with Pabbly Form Builder. But, how can you allow your visitor to do this?

How you can allow your visitors to do this?

Pabbly Form Builder supports uploading documents and files in several formats. You can find the file upload feature directly in the form builder’s dashboard. It allows you to add fields to your forms so that you can enable your users to upload any kind of file using it. Further, you can specify some particular format for which you want files to be uploaded into your forms. Once the files get uploaded, they get stored safely within Pabbly Form Builder’s database and you can access them at any time.

Further, it allows a user to upload images, docs, etc. through your forms. Besides this, different file extensions allowed to upload are jpg, gif, png, tif, doc, zip, pdf, rar, docx, ppt, mp3, mp4, mov, and flv.

Apart from this, Pabbly Form Builder enables your clients to upload an unlimited number of files without superimposing any limit on uploads.

Let’s see how you can add file upload option into your form via Pabbly Form Builder- 

Step 1: First, you need to create a new form or you can also try one from the plethora of beautiful pre-built templates. Also, you can edit these templates as per your requirements.

Pabbly Form Builder provides you with plenty of design tools that you can use to customize your form inside the dashboard.

Step 2: Here, you can find & add the file upload option to your form from the “Blocks” tab on the left. Also, you can insert headings, dropdown, video, image, captcha, radio, etc by using its drag & drop editor.

Step 3: Next, you can set up & customize the file upload field using the “FileUpload Field” section. Further, you can also click on the form fields and drag them to rearrange the order on your form.

Step 4: After adding all the required fields into your form, you can save it for further use. Now, to share this form with your users, click on the “Share” button on the top right corner of the dashboard.

Step 5: In addition, it offers 4 types of form embedding options for sharing form: Direct Sharing, Sliding Form, Full Form, and Pop up Form. Besides, you can share the link directly on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn with your customers.

Step 6: You can easily delete the file upload option. But, make sure that if you have accepted any submission for this form, you should export submissions first.

How to view the submission & uploaded files?

You can view the submissions directly from the “Submission” option available at the left-hand side panel in the dashboard.

Now, you can download the uploaded files & submissions directly from here. Besides this, you can download them into PDF format for further use.

This is how you can successfully add a file upload option into your forms which can help you to collect files from your clients.

How much does it cost?

Pabbly Form Builder gives you the freedom of unlimited File Uploads, submissions, webhooks and many more just at the cost of $10 per month.

Try Pabbly Form Builder now!

Conclusion:

And, there you have it! You now know how to create a file upload form using Pabbly Form Builder. There was a reason why we made you familiar with this form creator.

First of all, you will be paying an amount now which wasn’t required at all while using Google Forms. So, it is your right to spend only on a dutiful form builder software.

Don’t think of the cost. Think of value.

And like I said earlier, there are numerous features that were not included in Google Forms, nor there is any scope to find them in the near future. That’s why its high time that you try this Google Form alternative that is meant to suffice your business needs.

So what are you waiting for? Get started with the amazing Pabbly Form Builder today!

You are probably already aware of Google Forms, aren’t you? They are a great way to simplify the process of making customer feedback surveys, order forms, event registration forms, RSVP forms, job applications and much more. Moreover, you can also use them to gather contact information and easily extract the data into a spreadsheet. For your convenience, it offers a ton of templates for the different categories of forms as well.

One of the most common uses of Google Forms is to design event registration, shopping checkout or similar pages which involve receiving payment from the customer’s side. While there are many payment checkout pages that businesses build using Google Forms, but they are not the best for collecting payments. Why it is so?

First of all, Google Forms are not Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant. This means that they do not meet the technical and operational standards set for protecting credit card data provided by cardholders. Therefore, getting your customers to enter their payment details into Google Forms may not be the best idea.

Secondly, the forms simply do not have a way to collect payment from the visitor; you will have to redirect your customer to a third party website, which defeats the purpose of using Google Forms to create the payment checkout page in the first place. Nonetheless, if you are wondering how you can do that, let’s discuss that first.

Redirecting user to a third-party website from Google Forms for payment collection

When creating Google Forms, you can insert a confirmation text which is shown to the visitor after he or she submits the form. You are allowed to create a custom confirmation text which you can easily use to insert a link of the third-party payment website. This would redirect the users to the webpage where they can complete their payment.

While this may sound simple and effective, it leaves you with another task that you will need to complete on your end. After the customer makes the payment, you will have to manually check and record the payment received. This may not be possible without asking for a payment reference number from each customer.

You must have realized by now how hectic receiving payments can become if you stick to Google Forms. Is there a way out?

Pabbly Form Builder

Pabbly Form Builder is an online application on which you can design any kind of business forms, including payment forms. Here is how you can use Pabbly Form Builder to build your payment forms with ease:

First, click on the “Sign Up Free” button on the top right corner of the Pabbly homepage and complete the signup process and open the form builder tool.

In order to start the form designing process, click the “Create New Form” button.

A default “Connect With Us” form will be displayed on the screen, which you can edit as per your requirements. The Pabbly Form Builder provides you with a plethora of designing tools which you can use to customize your form. You can insert headings, dropdown, video, image, captcha, radio, etc from the “Blocks” tab on the left.

After you are done designing your form, it is time to add your products, which can be commodities, tickets, etc for which you wish to receive payment from your customers. For a payment checkout form, you will need to insert a payment box by clicking on the “Payment” block.

The application would automatically drop a default product list which would display product names, prices of each product and the total price of the purchase.

In order to add your products, click on the payment box that has just been inserted on your form.

This would open a “Configure Payment” dialogue box in which you need to fill in information about payment, products, and prices. Since this would be a long box, let’s go through it bit by bit.

You can change the field label through this dialogue box as well, which is currently “Add Your Products” by default. After that, you need to select the mode of payment from the “Select Merchant” drop-down menu.

Pabbly Form Builder provides you with two options: PayPal and Stripe. In this form, we will select “Both” so you can understand the processes for both the merchants.

To receive payments, you will need to integrate your PayPal and Stripe accounts to the form. In order to learn how to do just that, visit the PayPal integration guide here and Stripe integration guide here.

PayPal integration will generate a “Secret Key” and “Client ID”, which you need to enter in the “Configure Payment” dialogue box. For Stripe, simply click on the “Connect With Stripe” button as shown below.

After the payment gateway integrations are done, select the currency in which you wish to receive the payments and the billing cycle from the “Currency” and “Billing Cycle” drop-down menus respectively.

Use the “Setup Fee” to add any base amount for purchases.
Now that you have completely filled in your payment details, it is time to add your products. In this example, we are assuming you have multiple products.
In the “Multiple Products” tab, enter in your product name, price, stock and image in the respective boxes.

After this is done, your payment form is complete. Remember that you can change the label names in their respective boxes and even add help text for your visitors in the dialogue box.

To complete the payment setup, click on the “Save Payment Settings” box at the bottom.

Congratulations! You have successfully finished designing your payment form!
In order to share it with your users, click on the “Share” button on the top right corner of the webpage.

You can either use a link or Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to share your form with your customers.

Final Words

That’s it! Everything on your end is done and you can sit back and receive payments directly through your forms.

Pabbly Form Builder is a useful tool to give your customers a convenient user-interface to fill in the form and, as shown in this guide, make payments. In addition to that, it eliminates the trouble of keeping track of payments of each customer manually.

Do check this amazing online application to make your online operations – like collecting contact information, payment processing, billing, etc. – more efficient.

You May Also Like:

• What are the limitations of uploading documents using Google Forms?
• How to create dynamic questions in Google Forms?