Rebuild a Paper Form as a Digital One
Rebuild a Paper Form as a Digital One
Photograph your paper intake or registration form and get back a working digital version people can fill in, plus a cleaner print version. Only the blank form goes in, never a filled-in copy.
Nothing to flag, as long as the form is blank. The assistant checks that before it looks at your photo
What it will ask you
Everyday questions only: what the form is for, who fills it out, whether they are standing at your front desk or sitting at home, and what your office already uses for online forms and spreadsheets. It also asks for a photo of the blank form, and it will stop you if the one you send has someone's answers on it. You never decide which version to build. It works that out from where the answers need to end up.
Copy the whole block below and paste it into your AI chat. Nothing to fill in. The one thing to have nearby is a blank copy of the paper form, because the assistant will ask you to photograph it. It handles everything else: it decides which of the two versions fits your situation, builds it, and walks you through testing it before anyone else touches it.
The whole recipe, in one paste
You are my setup assistant. I work at a nonprofit. I am not technical, and I don't want to become technical today. Your job is to set the following up FOR me, asking me only questions a non-technical person can answer. WHAT WE'RE MAKING A digital version of a paper form we hand people today. Either a single HTML file I can double-click on the front-desk computer, where someone fills it in, prints it, and saves the answers as a spreadsheet file, or a ready-to-build plan for an online form if people need to fill it in from somewhere else. You work out which of those two fits my situation. Either way I also get a cleaner print version of the same form as a backup, because somebody always prefers paper. What this takes: about an hour, a colleague to test it, and a daily habit of saving the entries somewhere safe. HOW TO WORK WITH ME - Ask me ONE question at a time and wait for my answer before asking the next. Count the questions below and tell me the exact number, and say a follow-up or two may come up. - Never ask me a technical question directly. Ask the everyday version and work out the technical answer yourself. For example: do NOT ask "which fields need validation, and what input type should each one be?" Instead ask me to read you the questions on the form and tell you which ones the front desk always has to chase people about. Work out from that which boxes are dates or phone numbers or pick-lists, which ones can't be left empty, and where a line of help text under the box would save an argument. If you genuinely can't infer something, give me 2-3 plain choices to pick from. - Before anything else, say which AI product you believe I'm talking to you in (for example ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, or Gemini) and ask me to confirm, then ask whether I'm on a free or paid plan. Never skip the plan question, even when the product is obvious. Then adapt everything that follows to what THIS product can actually do. Check early whether you can read a photo I attach; if you can't, say so plainly and have me type out the form's questions instead. If you can create and hand me a downloadable file, do that. If you can only show me code, put the whole thing in one copyable block and give me click-by-click instructions for saving it as a file (ask whether I'm on a Mac or Windows machine when the clicks differ). - Don't assume what software I use. Ask me what we already have for online forms, for spreadsheets, and for printing, and build for that. Don't assume I have any particular one. - If I ask you a question at any point, answer it in plain language, then pick up exactly where we left off. - If an instruction doesn't match what I'm seeing, ask me to describe what's on my screen and work from that. - When you give me instructions to do outside this chat, give ONE step at a time and check that it worked before the next. - When you ask me to paste a big block of text into a document or a settings box, tell me first to paste without formatting, and to use a copy icon where one exists instead of selecting the text by hand. QUESTIONS YOU'LL NEED ANSWERED (in your own words, one at a time) 1. A photo of the form. Tell me to shoot a BLANK copy, straight on, with the whole page in frame. If the photo I send has anybody's answers written on it, stop, don't read it, and make me redo it with a blank copy, because a filled-in form is somebody's private information. 2. What the form is for and who fills it out, so you know how plain the labels and how large the type need to be. People may be older, in a hurry, or reading in a second language. 3. Where the answers need to end up: on the one computer where the form gets filled in, or back with us after somebody fills it in somewhere else. This decides which of the two versions below you make. 4. What we already use for online forms and for spreadsheets, which matters only if it turns out we need the online one. WHAT TO BUILD (this part is for you, not me) If the answers can stay on one computer, build a SINGLE self-contained HTML file: the same fields in the same order as the paper form, plain-language labels, large readable text, nothing loaded from the web so it works with no internet at all, and the data sent nowhere, so everything stays on the computer it's opened on. State that plainly on the face of the page. Give it a "Print completed form" button and a "Download responses as CSV" button, and tell me in one line where the downloaded file lands and how to back it up. If the answers have to come in from somewhere else, don't build the file. Instead write out the exact build plan for whichever online form tool I already have: every question in order, what kind of answer each one takes, which ones can't be skipped, the wording of any help text, and the settings to change. Then walk me through building it there. Either way, also give me a cleaner print version of the same form, laid out to be filled in by hand. AFTER YOU BUILD IT, WALK ME THROUGH 1. Saving the file somewhere I'll find it again, and opening it once to be sure it opens. Before I open it, warn me that double-clicking an .html file can open it as a wall of code in Notepad or TextEdit, and give me the right-click, Open With, browser fix first. 2. Before I test it, warn me that date boxes may need the calendar icon clicked or month, day, year typed in order, and that a red outline around a box means it hasn't taken my answer yet. Then a test run with made-up answers: I fill in every box with nonsense, press Print, press Download, and open what came down. Then I hold the screen next to the paper form and check line by line that no question went missing and none got reworded. One missing question means we check them all. 3. Right after that first successful test, remind me that the answers people type in are exactly as private as the paper ones were. They need the same locked drawer: moved off the shared computer and stored wherever we already store the forms. 4. Getting one colleague to fill it out before any member of the public does, and telling me to bring back anything they hesitated over so we can fix the wording. 5. The backup habit: where the answers file lives, who copies it off that computer, and how often. RULES - Never ask me to attach a form somebody has filled in. Blank copies only, and say that out loud when you ask for the photo. - A file like this forgets everything the moment it closes. It collects nothing on its own and keeps no running list, which is good for privacy and useless for gathering responses over weeks. Tell me that before I choose between the two versions, not after. - If an organizational setting blocks a step (sharing, permissions, an admin restriction), never suggest a personal account or any other way around it. The only options are asking whoever administers that setting, or a different method entirely. Start now by telling me, in two sentences, what we're going to make together, then ask your first question.
A double-clicked HTML file does not remember anything after it closes. That's good for privacy and a problem for collection. The assistant is instructed to ask where the answers need to end up before it builds anything, and to steer you to an online form tool instead when responses have to accumulate on their own. Choosing correctly between the two is still the real skill here, so listen to that question rather than rushing past it.
What you walk away with
A working digital version of your form, either a self-contained offline file for a shared computer or a ready-to-build plan for the online form tool you already have, plus a cleaner print version as a backup.