Create text for a question's hint

You can create question hint text to provide site users with guidelines for data entry. Question Hint text is displayed for site users on the right sidebar when entering data in a form.

To create a hint for a question, follow these steps:
  1. Access the Draft version of a study as described in Open a study's design.
  2. Access a form and select a question that you want to create hint text for.
  3. Expand the Details sidebar and work with any of the following options:
    Step Details
    Select Style and choose a specific style for your text:
    • Heading displays the largest font.
    • Paragraph displays the font in a regular size.
    • Footer displays the text in the smallest size.
    Note: To undo a style, highlight the text then click the same style option again.    		 Screen shot of the Style drop-down

    Insert the hint text between the tags and use <br> tags to add line breaks, where applicable.

    		 Screen shot of how text is added along with line breaks
    Add emphasis to the text by selecting any of the following options:
    • B for bold text
    • I for italicized text
    • U for underlined text

    Note: To undo formatting, highlight the text then click the formatting option again.

    		 Screen shot of the formatting options available for text: bold, italic, and underline.
    Change the default color:
    1. Highlight the text whose color you want to change.
    2. From the Color text drop-down, select a color.
    3. If you want to use a custom Hex code that isn't available on the Color text drop-down, highlight the Hex code in the text, and replace it with another code.

    Note: To undo a color, highlight the text you entered (not the HTML code that specifies the color), and select the same color option from the Color text drop-down. If you inserted a custom HEX code, you will need to delete the text and start over.

    		 Screen shot that highlights the Color drop
    Insert an external link or email link:
    1. Place your cursor where you want to insert the link.
    2. From the Insert hyperlink or email drop-down, select External link or Email link.
    3. In the newly displayed dialog, enter the required details, and click Add.
    4. Confirm the details.

    Note:

    You can do inline editing at this time or you can delete the link and insert a new one.
    		Screen shot of the Insert hyperlink or email drop-downScreen shot of adding an external link to the textLinks: Step 3
  4. Select Preview anytime you make a change to the text to view how it'll look like.
Run the Study Design report and the Annotated Case Report Forms report to view more details about the question hints you create. The HTML versions of both reports show the formatted question hint text, while the PDF versions show the unformatted question hint text. Both output versions don't display the rich text HTML tags.

Parent topic: Question types and settings