Preset list of countries / codes in multiple languages

User Support Form Building
1

Dear Kobo Community
I would like to add a question, “country of operation” in a multilingual survey.
Ideally, countries should be selected from a drop down list, and linked to the country code.
Is there any preset list that I could easily add to my form? How?

Many thanks!

2

Interesting project…

There are two parts to this. The first is to find an authoritative list of countries and their two digit codes. You can Google “country codes in Excel”. I found a reasonable open source list at the following URL:

Go to Data Files and download the csv file. I needed to hold down the option key on my Mac to download it. Then it opens right up in XLS format.

If you want three digit codes, you will need to do a bit more searching, but the process is the same.

Then do the following:

  • In your project, create a new select one question
  • Save and export the project to XLS
  • Replace Choice 1 and Choice 2 in the choices worksheet with the 250 or so country codes and names. Place the code in the name column and the country name in the label column. This is a simple copy and paste from your downloaded list to the project XLS file. Be sure to preserve any other rows in the choices worksheet that you may have.
  • copy the list_name that was assigned (like dg2eh16) for all 250 or so rows. Be careful so you do not increment this name when filling the cells.
  • Save the file. Go back to Formbuilder and replace your project with the updated XLS file.
  • You should see everything looking ok when you preview the form.
  • You may want to Change appearance of the question to horizontal to reduce scrolling.

Hope this helps.

35%20AM
Screen Shot 2019-08-08 at 11.50.35 AM.png1020×686 65.5 KB

1 Like
3

Thanks so much for the answer and for the clear explanation!

1 Like
4

Hello there everyone,

I just followed these steps as described by jblackman. Now, from that point on and considering the 250 country codes as quite space consuming (even if constraint “horizontal to reduce scrolling”), I was actually wondering if there might exist any option turning this setup into a real drop-down menu.

I just found this option under «Question Options / Appearance (Advanced) / minimal»

…thought this is worth dropping a few lines about it here.

Cheers and merci too :slight_smile:

1 Like
5

Welcome to the community @alienationfreez! Thank you for contributing your knowledge and experience to the community. Expecting the same in the upcoming days as well!

1 Like
6

Merci, feels nice here :strawberry:

1 Like