Text Entry Question
What's on This Page:
About Text Entry Questions
Text Entry questions allow you to collect open-ended responses from your respondents.
Variations
The Text Entry question has several variations that change the size and type of the text box. You can access these variations under Text Type in the question editing pane.
Single Line
The Single Line variation provides respondents with a one line text box. While respondents can write responses well beyond the limits of the box, the Single Line format encourages a more succinct answer.
Multi Line and Essay
The Multi Line and Essay variations provide respondents with multiple lines, encouraging respondents to provide a longer response. As you can see below, this change is not reflected in the editor, but in the preview of the question.
Form
The Form variation provides respondents with multiple separate text-entry boxes. This format is most often used to gather contact information from respondents.

Password
The Password variation provides a single line text box. Any characters typed into the text box are disguised by dots.
Text Entry Validation
Text Entry or Content Validation, found under Validation Type in the editing pane, is unique compared to other types of question validation.
In this area, you can specify the exact type of response you want (e.g., set Content Type to only accept answers in the format of an Email Address) or a specific length for the response (e.g., 200 characters). Respondents will not be able to move past the question until a correctly formatted response has been entered.
Data Analysis
Once your responses have been collected, Qualtrics offers various methods to create reports both in and out of the platform. From the Reports tab, you can view aggregate data with pre-made reports as well as create your own. From the Data & Analysis tab, you can view and manipulate your survey responses on an individual basis.
Visualizations
There are two visualization types available for Text Entry questions: Word Cloud and Paginated Table. For more information on these visualizations please visit the linked visualization support pages.
Downloaded Data Format
Each text entry box in your survey will be shown as a column in your downloaded data, with a row for each response. For most variations, there will be only one text box and so only one column for the question in your file. For the Form variation, there are multiple text boxes and so there will be multiple columns.