Changing the question background

You can change the background of the page, all the question elements or a single question element, to show a plain color and/or an image as the background. The picture below shows some of the elements that can have a background color or image.

Question elements with labels

Changing the background color

  1. Select Background in the topic drop-down.
  2. In the next drop-down, select the area to apply the background. To apply the background to the entire question, select (All). To apply the background to the all pages, select (Page).
  3. Click the Colour button, and select a color from the palette.
Topics toolbar showing background settings

Adding a picture to the background

  1. Select Background in the topic drop-down.
  2. In the next drop-down, select the area to apply the background. To apply the background to the entire question, select (All). To apply the background to the all pages, select (Page).
  3. Click the Picture button. This displays the Picture dialog.
  4. Select a picture from the file name drop-down or click Browse to browse for the picture file. The picture path name is shown in the drop-down. Click Remove to clear the picture.
  1. You can align the picture horizontally using the Horizontal drop-down, with Left, Centre and Right options. You can align the picture vertically using the Vertical drop-down, with Top, Centre, Bottom options.
  2. The area assigned for the selected part of the question determines the size of the picture. For an online edition you can select Tile or Fixed to repeat or fix the image. For a paper edition you can select Stretch or Fit to resize the image or Tile and Zoom to repeat or scale the image. This can be done both horizontally and vertically.
  3. If available, you can colourize the GIF file by selecting a color from the drop-down.
  4. Click Zoom and enter a percentage value to resize the image in the background.
  5. Click OK to save the changes.

If the background uses a color and a picture, the color shows in areas where the picture does not fill the space. The background preview area on the toolbar shows a split view with the color in the top half and the picture in the bottom half.

Changes to the background are the same in all language editions for a single output edition, but will not change other output editions as this affects the style.

Adding highlighting in online editions

Highlighting a row makes it clear to the respondent which choice they are selecting. When a respondent moves the mouse over a question, the question label and answer box are highlighted in this color.

Row highlight for selected questions

  1. Select the question or questions to highlight.
  2. Select Background in the topic drop-down.
  3. Select Row Highlight in the second drop-down list.
  4. Click the Colour button, and select a color from the palette.
Highlighting a question

The selected question(s) will now have a highlight when the respondent selects them in an online survey.

Row highlight for all questions

  1. Select the question to highlight.
  2. Click Style mode StyleModeIcon.png on the Questionnaire window toolbar. This changes to style mode and the selected question highlight changes to red.
  3. To make highlighting available on all questions, select All Styles from the style menu on the left.
  4. Set the toolbar topic to Background.
  5. Select Row Highlight in the second drop-down list.
  6. Click the Colour button, and select a color from the palette.
Applying a highlight to questions in Style mode

All styles will now be highlighted when selected in an online questionnaire.

Explore more ways of customising questions here.

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