pageBreak

Surveys & forms

pageBreak controls where a run of consecutive type=form rows is split into displayed pages. Consecutive form rows are gathered onto one survey page, and pageBreak says where that page ends. Use it to break long surveys into screens, or (with afterAll) to page questions generated from a dynamic list.

Whatever pageBreak says, a page always ends when the next trial is not a form.

Syntax

Put 1 in the cell of the last question on a page; the page ends after that row.

One token per row, matched exactly and case-sensitively. The recognized tokens are before, after, 1 and afterAll, or an empty cell for no break. Options below explains what each one does.

Options

Value	Effect
empty (default)	no break from this row; the page keeps growing, unless the NEXT row has before or the next trial is not a form
before	break BEFORE this row: the page ends after the previous form row. On the row itself, before never ends the page after it
after or 1	break after this row
afterAll	only meaningful on a row generated from a dynamic list: the break falls after the LAST generated trial of the list. On any other row, afterAll produces NO break
anything else (0, yes, Before, AFTERALL…)	treated as after: anything that is neither blank nor before ends the page

Defaults & missing values

If the column is absent, or the cells are left blank, no break is added: ALL consecutive form rows collapse onto a single page, which ends only when a non-form trial follows.

Works with

• Randomization: before looks at the next trial in presentation order, so after random or randomBlock shuffling, “next” is not the next spreadsheet row.
• button1 and the next-button text: a page has one button, and its label comes from the last row on the page, so a button1 written on an earlier row of the same page is overwritten. By default the button reads FINISH on the last page of the experiment or when the next trial is not a form, NEXT otherwise, and a filled-in button1 overrides both. There is no back button.
• Dynamic lists: afterAll is the only way to break after an expanded list, because all the generated questions come from one spreadsheet row.
• timer: form rows without their own timer inherit the timer label of the first row of their page, but a page start is only recognized when the previous spreadsheet row has pageBreak set to exactly 1. Pages broken with after, before or afterAll are not recognized as page starts.
• Progress bar: pageBreak does not affect it. The bar tracks trials, not pages.
• Non-form rows: the column has no effect there.

Examples

type	head	responseType	responseOptions	pageBreak
form	Q1	radio	Yes;No
form	Q2	radio	Yes;No
form	Q3	radio	Yes;No	1
form	Q4	box
form	Q5	box

Q1-Q3 render on page 1 (break after Q3); Q4-Q5 on page 2 (page ends because no form follows).

type	head	responseType	responseOptions	pageBreak
form	About you	box
form	About your team	radio	Small;Large	before

The before on row 2 ends page 1 after row 1.

type	head	responseType	responseOptions	pageBreak
form	Rate [item]	likert	1;2;3;4;5	afterAll

With [item] expanding via a dynamic list, all generated ratings accumulate onto one page and the break fires only after the last generated trial.

Tips & gotchas

Caution

Any unrecognized value, including 0, behaves as after. Writing pageBreak of 0 does NOT mean “no break”; leave the cell blank for that.

• Matching is case-sensitive: Before and afterall are unrecognized, so they act as after.
• afterAll on a row that is not generated from a dynamic list suppresses the break entirely, unlike other unrecognized values, which force one.
• Timer labels are only inherited from pages broken with a literal 1, so mixing after with per-page timers can attach the wrong timer label.
• There is no back navigation between survey pages; each page has a single forward button.

Common combinations

pageBreak appears in these worked recipes:

• Opening demographics page: Open the study with one required demographics page combining a numeric age box, a gender choice and an education dropdown.
• Rank plus stars page: Measure preferences with a ranking question and a star rating together on one survey page.
• Rating images beside questions: Show an image next to a likert question on each survey page, one image per page.
• Scored quiz as a form: Run a knowledge quiz as one question per page, scoring every answer and showing accuracy at the debrief.
• Branching questionnaire: Route participants to different questionnaire pages depending on their answer to an earlier question.