Building forms
The editor, the questions and blocks a form can hold, and what happens when you publish.
How a form is built
The editor works like a document: you type, add blocks, and move them around. Questions and content sit on the canvas as respondents will see them. Logic, hidden fields, and calculated fields work in the background, so the form can react to each answer. AI chat can build or change a form for you from a sentence.
Draft and published
Your edits save as a draft. Respondents keep seeing the last published version until you publish again, so you can work on a live form without anyone noticing. Before you publish, Formstep checks the draft and stops on anything that would break. Use Preview to try the form as a respondent first.
Pages in this section
The editor
- Understanding the editorThe parts of the form editor: the top bar, the canvas, the side panel and its four tabs, the slash menu, AI chat, and keyboard shortcuts.
- Form structureSplit a form into pages with a progress bar, put blocks side by side in columns, and move, change, or hide blocks with the block menu.
- Question typesThe questions you can add to a form, from text and choice to signatures, payments, and scheduling, and when to use each one.
- Question settingsLabels, placeholders, default values, choice options, and validation rules.
- Content blocks & formattingAdd headings, text, images, videos, maps, embeds, and tables between your questions, format text with the toolbar, and show earlier answers with @.
Files, payments and more
- File uploads & signaturesCollect files and drawn signatures from respondents.
- Documents blockHand files to the respondent (a contract draft, a price list, a how-to) as a download list inside the form.
- Payment collectionAccept one-time payments from respondents via Stripe.
- Respondent email verificationOn the Business plan, respondents confirm their email address with a 6-digit code before they can submit, so every address you collect is real and reachable.
- Repeating groupsLet a respondent fill in the same questions as many times as they need, such as one name and age per guest, and see where the answers show up.
Logic and data
- Conditional logicShow, hide, require, and jump to pages based on answers, or calculate values and stop a submission.
- Hidden fieldsPass data the respondent never sees into a form, from the address of a share link or the context of a request, and save it with each submission.
- Calculated fieldsWork out scores, totals, and text from form answers.
- @ mentionsType @ to show an answer somewhere else in your form, from question titles to the thank-you page and emails.
- AI ValidationCheck answers and uploaded files against a rule you write in one sentence.
After they submit
- Thank-you page & redirectCustomize the thank-you page respondents see after they submit, with text, links, images, and their answers, or send them to your own web page.
- Live resultsShow respondents the answer counts after they submit, put the results on a big screen, and add an AI summary of what they mean.
Languages and publishing
- Multilingual formsSet the language you write a form in, translate questions, text, and emails by hand or with AI, and control which language each respondent sees.
- Form settingsChoose who can open a form, what happens after someone submits, and which emails go out, all in the Settings dialog.
- Publish historyView the published versions of your form and revert to an earlier one.
- Publish checksWhat Formstep checks before your form goes live, which findings block publishing, and how to clear the ones you are most likely to meet.