Field Types Overview

Learn what each Elzo Forms field type collects, which settings it offers, and what it stores in a submission.

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Elzo Forms includes ten field types. Each one renders a different control, offers its own settings in the form builder, and stores its value in the submission in a specific shape. The Text type also comes in variants — Email, Phone, Number, Date, Time, URL and Password — which the builder lists next to the other types.

Use this page to choose the right field type while building a form, and to understand what each type does with the value after the visitor submits.

Field types at a glance

Field type What the visitor does What the submission stores
Text Types one line: plain text, or one of the variants described under Text The text entered
Textarea Types several lines The text entered, line breaks kept
Select Picks one option, or several, from a dropdown The option value, or a list of values
Radio Picks one option from a visible list The option value
Checkbox Ticks any number of options from a visible list A list of option values
Range Drags a slider to a number or a numeric range A number, or X - Y for a two-handle range
File Upload Uploads one or more files The URL of each stored file
Hidden Nothing — the field is not visible The value of the input at submit time
Content Nothing — the field displays text Nothing
Button Clicks a submit button, a plain button, or a link Nothing

All ten types are available in Elzo Forms Free and PRO. Plugins can register additional types — see Field Type Filters.

Add a field

  1. Open the form in Forms.
  2. In the Form Data box, open the Fields tab.
  3. Click Add Field under the step the field belongs to. A list of field types opens.
  4. Click a type, or type part of its name to filter the list and choose with the arrow keys and Enter. Escape closes the list without adding anything.
  5. The field is added at the end of the step and opened for editing. Enter a Label and fill in the settings below it.
  6. Update the form.

The list is grouped into Basic, Choice, Date & other inputs and Layout & advanced. Search also knows common alternative names, so dropdown finds Select and upload finds File Upload. Field types added by another plugin appear under Other unless that plugin places them in a group.

To change the type of an existing field, click the Type button on its General tab, which opens the same list. The settings that belong to the old type are replaced by those of the new one, and every setting both types share keeps its current value, including changes you have not saved yet. Switching between Select, Radio and Checkbox therefore preserves the option list, and switching from Text to Email keeps the label and the placeholder.

Beyond the type-specific settings described below, every field shares the settings on the View, Logic and Admin tabs. Those are covered in Field Settings.

Text

The Text field is a single-line input. It comes in eight variants, each a separate entry in the field type list. The variants share the same settings and differ in two things: the control the browser shows, and the format Elzo Forms accepts when the form is submitted. The field header in the builder names the variant — Email, Date — rather than Text.

Variant Control Accepted on submit
Text Plain text box Any text
Email Email input A valid email address
Phone Telephone input Any value that contains at least one digit
Number Number input A number; decimals and negative numbers are allowed
Date Browser date picker A date that exists in the calendar
Time Browser time picker A time of day in hours and minutes, optionally with seconds
URL URL input A full address with a protocol, such as https://example.com
Password Masked input Any text, stored exactly as typed

Elzo Forms turns off the browser’s own format checks and runs these on the server, so a value sent by a script is held to the same format as one typed into the form. A value in the wrong format stops the submission with a message naming the field, such as “Please enter a valid date for Date of birth”. An empty value is never a format error: only Required decides whether the field may be left empty.

A URL has to use a protocol WordPress allows — https, http, mailto and tel, among others — and a web address has to name a valid host. Addresses with non-Latin domain names are accepted and stored as typed. The Phone variant deliberately accepts any way of writing a number, such as +1 (555) 123-4567 or 050 123 45 67, Viber; it only rejects values with no digit at all.

The Number variant has no minimum, maximum or step setting. Use a Range field when the value has to stay inside bounds.

Other settings: Placeholder and Default Value on the General tab. The View tab adds Autocomplete, which takes a standard browser autofill token such as name, email or tel (off turns browser autofill off for that field), and Input prepend and Input append, which put a fixed label against the edge of the input — a currency symbol, a unit, a domain.

Warning: the Password variant only masks what the visitor types. The value is saved in the submission exactly as typed and listed in the notification email as ordinary text. Do not use it to collect account passwords.

Textarea

The Textarea field is a multi-line text box for longer answers such as a message, a project description, or support details. Line breaks are preserved in the stored value.

Settings on the General tab: Placeholder, Default Value, Rows Amount (the visible height of the box, three rows by default) and Maximum length, a character limit the browser enforces while typing and the server checks again on submit. Leave Maximum length empty for no limit.

Writing option lists

Select, Radio and Checkbox fields all take their choices from an Options box on the General tab. Enter one option per line, using this markup:

value : label || description

Only the value is required. The label and the description are optional:

  • value — what is stored in the submission and what conditions and automations compare against.
  • label — what the visitor reads. When it is omitted, the value is displayed instead.
  • description — a second line of explanatory text under the label. Radio and Checkbox fields render it; Select ignores it.

These four lines are all valid, and each produces something different:

business
business : Business
business : Business || Companies, agencies and sole traders
business : || Companies, agencies and sole traders

The first stores and shows business. The second stores business and shows Business. The third adds a description under the label. The fourth keeps business as the visible text and still shows the description, because an empty label falls back to the value.

Because the value is what gets stored, keep values short and stable. Renaming a label is safe at any time; changing a value changes what new submissions record and breaks any condition or automation that was matching the old one.

Note: the value and the label are separated by the first colon on the line, so neither may contain a colon of its own. Text after a second colon is dropped. Option lines are also stripped of HTML, so markup in a label or description is not rendered.

A submitted value that is not in the option list is rejected and the submission fails, so removing an option only affects new submissions — entries already saved keep the value they were submitted with.

Select

The Select field is a dropdown. Use it when the list is long enough that a visible list of choices would crowd the form.

Settings on the General tab:

  • Options — the choice list, as described above.
  • Placeholder — becomes the first, empty entry of the dropdown. When the field is also required, that entry cannot be chosen back once the visitor picks a real option.
  • Default Value — an option value to preselect. For a multi-select, separate several values with commas.
  • Allow multiple selections — lets the visitor pick more than one option. The submission then stores a list.
  • Enable search — adds a search box inside the dropdown, which helps with long lists.

Turning on either Allow multiple selections or Enable search replaces the browser dropdown with the Elzo Forms dropdown, which is where multiple selections and searching are shown.

Radio

The Radio field shows all choices at once and accepts exactly one of them. Use it for short lists where seeing every option matters, such as a request type or a service tier.

Settings: Options and Default Value on the General tab; Text under label, Text under field and Layout (Vertical, Inline, or Two columns) on the View tab.

A Radio field has no placeholder and no empty entry. Once the visitor selects an option, they can change it but cannot clear it. If “no answer” is a meaningful answer, add it as an explicit option.

Checkbox

The Checkbox field shows all choices at once and accepts any number of them, so its stored value is always a list. A single-option Checkbox field is the normal way to build a consent or agreement tick box.

Settings on the General tab:

  • Options — the choice list. Descriptions are rendered here, which makes this field a good fit for consent wording that needs a short explanation.
  • Default Value — option values to tick in advance, separated by commas.
  • Min Selections and Max Selections — how many options the visitor must and may tick.

The View tab adds Text under label, Text under field, Layout (Vertical, Inline, or Two columns) and Style (Checkmark or Toggler).

Min Selections constrains a selection the visitor has started; it does not force one. On an optional field, ticking nothing is still valid, ticking fewer than the minimum is not. Required is what makes an empty selection invalid, so combine the two when at least that many options must always be chosen. A maximum lower than the minimum would make the field impossible to submit, so Elzo Forms raises it to the minimum.

Range

The Range field is a slider for numeric input such as a budget, a quantity or a rating. Its Range type decides how many handles it has:

Range type Visitor picks Stored value
Two handles range A lower and an upper bound X - Y
One handle range A single value, shown as a filled bar A number
Single point A single value, shown as a point A number

Other settings on the General tab are Step, Default Value, Min Value and Max Value. On the View tab you can add Text under label and Text under field, hide the numeric boxes under the slider with Hide text inputs, and put a unit or a currency symbol beside them with Input prepend and Input append.

The default value is written as a single number, or as 2 - 4 for a two-handle range. Elzo Forms swaps Min Value and Max Value if they are entered the wrong way round, and clamps the default value into the resulting range when the form is saved.

File Upload

The File Upload field lets visitors attach files. Files upload in the background as soon as they are chosen, and are moved into permanent storage only when the submission is saved.

Settings on the General tab:

  • Allowed file types — a comma-separated list of extensions or MIME types. Leaving it empty allows jpg, jpeg, png, gif, webp, pdf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, csv and txt.
  • Max file size (MB) — applies per file. The server upload limit still applies, so a value above it has no effect; leaving the setting empty uses the server limit.
  • Allow multiple files, with Minimum files and Maximum files once it is on.

The View tab adds Text under label, Text under field, Style (Default or Drag and drop), and wording overrides for File upload text and File upload button text.

The submission stores the URL of each stored file. Files are not added to the Media Library.

Files that never become part of a submission do not stay on the server. When the visitor removes a file from the list with its × button, the uploaded copy is deleted right away. A file uploaded for a form that is never submitted is deleted automatically after about six hours.

Once submitted, the files belong to the submission. Deleting the submission permanently — with Delete Permanently, or by emptying the Trash — deletes its files as well. Moving a submission to the Trash keeps them, so it can still be restored.

Warning: stored files are reachable by anyone who has their URL. Collect only files you need, and keep the allowed types as narrow as the form allows.

Hidden

The Hidden field submits a value the visitor never sees. Its only setting is Default Value, and it can never be marked required.

Use it to record fixed context along with the submission — which landing page a form belongs to, which campaign it serves, which team should receive it. Scripts on the page can also write into it before submit, which is how tracking values are usually captured.

Warning: the value sits in the page HTML and can be read and changed by anyone before they submit. Never use a Hidden field for a value that decides pricing, permissions, or anything else that has to be trusted.

Content

The Content field displays text inside the form instead of collecting anything. Use it for an introduction, a section heading, a note between groups of fields, or legal wording that has to be read but not agreed to.

Write the text in the editor on the General tab, or tick Edit as HTML to work in markup. The content allows the same HTML that a WordPress post allows, and shortcodes in it are executed when the form renders.

A Content field never appears in a submission, never appears in the Submissions table, and cannot be marked required. It does not render a label, so put every visible word into the content itself.

Button

The Button field renders one of three things, chosen with Button Type:

  • Submit — submits the form.
  • Button — a plain button that does nothing on its own. Use it as a hook for your own JavaScript.
  • Link — a link, with URL and Target settings.

Button Title sets the visible text.

You do not need a Button field to submit a form. If the last step has no Submit button of its own, Elzo Forms renders its own submit button using the wording from the form’s Texts tab. Adding a Submit button field to the last step replaces it, which is how you change its position or width. In a multi-step form, the next and previous buttons are always added automatically.

Like a Content field, a Button field never appears in a submission and cannot be marked required.

Which types work in conditional logic

Every field type except Content and Button can be the subject of a Field value condition, because those two never carry a value to compare.

The operators offered depend on the type. Text, Textarea and Hidden fields offer every value comparison. Select, Radio and Checkbox fields compare as text and, with is or is not, let you pick from their own option values instead of typing one. A Range field compares with is, is not, greater than and less than. A File Upload field compares the addresses of its files with is, is not, contains and does not contain — enough to ask whether a file was uploaded, or whether it is a PDF.

Fields that can hold several values — Checkbox, Select with Allow multiple selections, and File Upload with Allow multiple files — also offer number of values operators, which compare how many options were ticked or files uploaded.

Content and Button fields can still be shown and hidden by conditional logic themselves. See Conditional Logic for Fields.

Choosing between similar types

Select or Radio. Both accept one answer. Use Radio when there are only a few options and comparing them matters; use Select when the list is long or the form should stay compact.

Checkbox or a multi-select. Both accept several answers and both store a list. Use Checkbox when the options should be visible and each may need a description; use a Select with Allow multiple selections when the list is long enough to need searching.

Number or Range. Use the Number variant of Text for an exact figure the visitor should type. Use Range when the value has to stay between bounds, or when an approximate answer is good enough.

Content field or help text. Use Text under label and Text under field for a short hint attached to one field. Use a Content field for anything longer, for text that belongs to a group of fields, or when the text needs formatting — help text is stored as plain text, while a Content field accepts HTML and shortcodes.

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