Secret Santa Questionnaire

The questions that change what a giver would buy: clothing sizes (only if clothes are on the table), favourite colours, snacks and drinks, hobbies, favourite books, films or games, and — most important — allergies, dietary needs and things to avoid. A wishlist-links question catches people who already know what they want. Ten to twelve questions is plenty; more than that and people skip them. The Office preset leaves out sizes, which are personal at work and rarely needed for a budget gift.

Yes, with Typeable fields ticked: each answer box and the name line becomes a PDF form field, and the choice questions get tick boxes. People can open the file in a PDF reader, type their answers, save and send it back. Some browser PDF viewers don’t keep typed answers when saving, so suggest a desktop reader if answers go missing. Untick it for a plain paper form, which also shows a faint example answer on each line of a full-page form.

One per page gives every question generous writing space, which is easiest to fill in by hand. Two per page puts two identical forms on a sheet with a dashed cut line, saving paper for big groups. Half a page holds about a dozen questions in two columns; if you pick more, the answers get fewer writing lines, and if they still don’t fit, the page tells you which questions were left out so you can switch back to one per page.

Yes. Type the names into Pre-print names, one per line, and the PDF has one form per person with their name already on it — handy for handing out at a desk or in a classroom. Leave the box empty for blank forms with a line to write a name on, and print as many copies as you need.

Press Copy text and paste it into WhatsApp, Slack, Teams, an email or any chat — or use the WhatsApp and Email buttons. It starts with the title, budget and dates, asks people to reply privately, then lists each question with a colon to answer after. Ask for answers in a private message, not in the group chat, so nobody’s Secret Santa can read them first.

Paste a filled-in reply into Turn a reply into a Secret Santa wishlist. It reads the answers after each question label, then builds one line of up to 200 characters — the size of a wishlist in the Secret Santa generator — putting allergies, things to avoid and sizes first so they survive if the line has to be cut. Copy it into that person’s Wishlists / gift hints box before you draw; the generator then shows it only to whoever draws them.

No. The form, the PDF and the text version are all made in your browser, and pasted replies are read on your device. Your settings — title, questions, colours and names — are remembered in this browser’s local storage for next time; nothing is sent to a server and there is no account.

The PDF uses the standard Helvetica fonts, which cover Western European letters: accents such as é, ü or ñ print as typed. Cyrillic and Greek are transliterated into Latin letters, other accented letters lose their accent, and other scripts and emoji are left out. The text version keeps everything exactly as typed, so use it for groups writing in other scripts.