If you have ever tried to format text and / or insert line breaks into your questions in sharepoint surveys, you’ll know its not an easy task. However by adding some simple javascript you can format the text in your questions as you want.

Basically at the bottom of your survey page add a Content Editor Webpart & insert the follow script:

<script language="JavaScript"> var ClassName; ClassName = 'ms-formlabel';</p> <p>var elements = new Array();</p> <p>var elements = document.getElementsByTagName('td');</p> <p>for(var e=0;e<elements.length;e++) { if(elements[e].className == ClassName) {</p> <p>elements[e].innerHTML = elements[e].innerHTML.replace('startitalic','<i>');</p> <p>elements[e].innerHTML = elements[e].innerHTML.replace('enditalic','</i>');</p> <p>elements[e].innerHTML = elements[e].innerHTML.replace('startbold','<b>');</p> <p>elements[e].innerHTML = elements[e].innerHTML.replace('endbold','</b>');</p> <p>elements[e].innerHTML = elements[e].innerHTML.replace('linebreak','<br/>');</p> <p>elements[e].innerHTML = elements[e].innerHTML.replace('startunderline','<u>');</p> <p>elements[e].innerHTML = elements[e].innerHTML.replace('endunderline','</u>');</p> <p>}</p> <p>}</p> <p></script>

You will see the script is mapping your HTML standard HTML command to keywords to trigger your formatting.

So say you wanted your question to appear in italics, you would edit your question as normal but insert the italic keyword triggers ie.

How old are you?

To appear in italics you would write the question as:

startitalic How old are you? enditalic

Now your question will appear in italics and so on……..

If you cant edit your survey page to add you CEWP see the previous post on how to edit this page.

More From pstilgoe

• Exporting a Sharepoint List into XML
• This page cannot be edited in SharePoint Designer
• View PDF documents in a webpart