Epi Info™ User Guide

Form Designer

Field Attributes

Fields have properties or attributes that help control how or if they receive data. Each field type has a set of available field attributes; however, some options may not be shown or may be disabled (grayed out) depending on the field type selected.

• Required — makes a field mandatory in data entry. If a page contains fields marked with the Required attribute, the Enter tool will not allow record navigation or the saving of a partially completed record until a value is supplied in all Required fields.

Use With Caution! The Required attribute can potentially cause gridlock if, for any reason, the required information is not available at the time of data entry.
It is best to use this attribute sparingly to avoid this situation.

Additionally, Check Code can be used to set or unset a field’s required status. For more information on this feature, refer to the topics in the Check Code Command Reference on the SET-REQUIRED and SET-NOT-REQUIRED commands.

• Read Only — prevents data entry into the field. This type of attribute is used for fields that hold calculated or prepopulated values that should not be edited. The cursor cannot be placed in the field and therefore no data entry can occur. Also, since the cursor cannot enter a field with this attribute, Check Code written for this field will not have a chance to run.
  The Read Only attribute is useful for calculated fields that will not be changed directly. Read Only cannot be used in combination with the Required attribute because those attributes are mutually exclusive.
• Retain Image Size — used only for image fields, this attribute maintains the size of the original image and does not alter the size to fit the image box in the form.
• Range — enables a valid range with lower and upper limit fields. Only Number and Date field types can have range values. If a value is entered that is less than the lower limit or greater than the upper limit, you will get a warning message. Missing values are accepted unless the field’s Required attribute is checked.
• Repeat Last — causes the field to be automatically populated with the last value displayed for that field. This may speed up data entry for fields that often have a value the same as the last record entered. For example, if entering many records from a given clinic, then a “Clinic Name” field could have the Repeat Last attribute checked so it will be automatically filled in from the clinic name used in the last record.
• Pattern – the format that a response must be entered in the field.
• Prompt Font — the font for the text entered in the Question or Prompt text box.
• Field Font — the font for the data entered into the field.

The table below shows which attributes are available for each field type and their compatibility with Web Survey and Mobile Devices: