Export a Survey

Export a Survey

How to Export a Survey

Exporting a survey allows you to back it up, share it with others, or migrate it to another LimeSurvey instance.

Exporting a survey vs. exporting results

These are two different things:

  • Exporting a survey (this article) saves the survey itself — its questions, groups, logic and settings — as a file you can re-import.
  • Exporting results downloads the responses your participants gave, for analysis in Excel, SPSS and similar tools. For that, see Exporting Questions and Responses.

Steps to Export a Survey

Open the survey from your survey list, then use the "..." menu → Tools → Export.

You'll now be prompted to choose from several export options:

Export Options

  • Survey structure (.lss): Recommended for backups or importing to another LimeSurvey instance.
  • Survey archive (.lsa): Includes the structure plus response, participant, and timing data. Note that this option is only available for active surveys.
  • queXML format (.xml): The survey in the queXML schema, an open standard for describing questionnaires.
  • Tab-separated-values format (.txt): The survey structure as tab-separated text, openable in a spreadsheet.
  • Printable survey (PDF or HTML): Generates a static copy of the survey.

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