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I have a google form which I linked to a google sheet via the "create spreadsheet" button on the form.

Is there a way to format the resulting google sheet for current and future form responses? Like for instance, if I change the horizontal alignment column A from left to center, how can I make all incoming form responses also align to center.

Whenever I format something, such as the horizontal alignment or cell format to accounting, all incoming form input data gets placed into the sheet at its original format, not the new one.

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For the reasons you mention and a host of others, it is always best (i.e., the professional standard) to leave form-data intake sheets as they are: without adding columns, formulas, formatting, etc. Instead, start a second sheet, use an array formula in cell A1 to bring in the form-data results (e.g., =ArrayFormula('Form Responses 1'!A:J)), and format that SECOND sheet. You can permanently "Hide" the live form-data intake sheet.

In case it is not obvious, you'll need to adjust the form name and range in the example formula above to match your own form-data intake sheet and active range of intake columns.

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  • Thank you, I'll start testing that out now. I tried to do that with a different tab on the form-data intake sheet instead of a completely new sheet, but it didn't work out. Whenever a new response was added to the intake sheet, it pushed the formulas on the second tab's sheet. For instance, if the formula was copying B10 cell from the intake sheet that was currently blank because there was no response, once a response was added, the formula on the second tab would be pushed down to B11 cell instead. ie: nothing would be copied over to the second tab sheet.
    – Brandon
    Oct 27, 2021 at 19:19
  • You'll need to use array formulas only in the "mirror" sheet, not formulas that reference individual cells; and those array formulas should be in the top-left cell the range to which they will pull data (even if "top left" is just the top of a single column). If you'd like to post a link to a sample sheet that is receiving live data from a form (even if you just make a simple dummy form), I or someone else here can easily show you how to do that.
    – Erik Tyler
    Oct 27, 2021 at 20:46

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