Building Forms
Understanding the editor
A tour of the form builder — where everything lives and how to get around fast.
Layout at a glance
The editor is a single, document-style canvas — type, insert blocks, and arrange them like a doc. Three areas do the work:
Top toolbar — Edit, Translate, and Preview, then Settings, Theme, the issue indicator, and Publish. Publish shows whenever there is something to publish. After your first publish, Submissions, Share, and Publish history join them, and Revert unpublished changes appears whenever a draft differs from what is live
Canvas (center) — your form as respondents will see it, with an optional cover image and logo at the top
AI chat — floating button in the bottom-right; opens a side panel where you can ask AI to build or edit your form
The workspace sidebar on the left holds navigation across all your forms.
Beside Publish sits the issue indicator, a traffic light for the readiness check: green when the form is ready, amber for warnings, red for errors. Click it to list what it found — each entry links to the place you fix it. Errors block publishing. Warnings do not, but formbase asks first and offers to fix them for you. Publish checks lists every finding and how to clear it.
Cover and logo
Above the form title, use Add Cover and Add Logo. The picker has four tabs — Upload (PNG, JPG, or WebP up to 5 MB), Colors for a solid color, Unsplash, and Icons. Drag a cover up or down to reposition it. Only uploads count toward your storage.
Add a question or content
Click an empty line on the canvas and type / — or press Cmd/Ctrl + / — to open the block menu. Keep typing to filter. Four categories, in this order:
Basic Blocks — Heading 1–3, Bullet List, Numbered List
Form Fields — every question type, from Text Input to Payment and Schedule appointment
Layout — Table, 2 Columns, Repeating Group, Logic, Hidden Field, Calculated Field, Page Break, Thank You Page
Media — Image, YouTube Embed, Google Maps Embed, Embed anything
The menu only offers what fits where the cursor is: no questions or logic on a thank-you page, no root-only blocks inside a column. See Question types for the full catalogue and Form structure → Block menu for what the drag handle offers.
Just describe what you need
Don't feel like browsing the menu? Open AI chat and say “add a phone number and a date picker”. It inserts the fields for you.
Select and change blocks
Click a block’s drag handle to open its menu. What it offers depends on the block: Turn into, Options, Validation, align, create repeating group, insert, duplicate, move, hide, and delete.
Select several blocks by dragging a rectangle around them, by shift-clicking a second block to take the range, or by pressing Cmd/Ctrl+A once for the current block’s text and again for every block. The handle menu then acts on the whole selection: turn compatible blocks into another type, mark questions required or optional, hide or show titles, create a repeating group, duplicate, move, hide, or delete.
Keyboard shortcuts
On a Mac use Cmd; on Windows and Linux use Ctrl.
| Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|
| Cmd + / | Open the block menu at the cursor |
| Cmd + B / I / U / S | Bold, italic, underline, strikethrough |
| Cmd + K | Link the selected text. Outside the canvas the same keys open the workspace search palette |
| Cmd + A | Once: the current block's text. Again: every block |
| Shift + Enter | Line break inside the block, instead of a new block |
| Cmd + Enter | Leave the block and start a fresh paragraph below |
| Shift + Cmd + Enter | Leave the block and start a fresh paragraph above |
| Tab / Shift + Tab | Indent or outdent a list item |
| Cmd + D | In a text input: swap between placeholder and default value. On an option: select it by default |
| Cmd + H | On a choice option: hide it from respondents |
Format text
Select any text to see a floating toolbar: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, inline code, equation, link, font, font size, and color. See Content blocks → Text formatting for the full list.
Pages & columns
Forms can be a single page or split into many. Insert a Page Break to create a multi-step flow with a progress bar, and 2 Columns to place blocks side by side. Both behave like any other block — drag to reorder, delete from the block menu. See Form structure for the full guide.
Translate
The Translate tab opens a side-by-side editor for every visible string in your form. Add languages, translate each question, and publish. See Translating form content for the full guide.
AI chat
The floating button in the bottom-right opens AI chat — an assistant that can write, audit, and edit your form. Pick a starter prompt or just describe what you want. Usage draws from your AI credit balance, shown above the input.
Theme
The Theme button (palette icon) opens a docked panel with a light/dark mode toggle, preset themes, and per-section controls for fonts, colors, inputs, choices, buttons, and more. Presets work on every plan; custom colors and fonts need Pro. See Appearance & theming for details.
Share
The Share button opens a sheet with two channels. Public link holds your share links — create several to tell campaigns apart or to set different languages and limits — with Embed, Popup, and QR Code beside the URL. Requests sends the form to one named person at a time. See Share links, Embedding & popups, and Creating requests.
Settings
The Settings button (gear icon) opens a dialog with six tabs. For a deep dive, see Form settings.
General — form name, default language, branding toggle
Access — authentication, password, bot protection (public link only)
Submissions — close submissions, redirect URL, retention; edit after submit and allow another response for the public link
E-mail Notifications — sending domain, notify on new submission, respondent confirmation, reminders, and the request invitation
Integrations — GA4/Axiom analytics streaming; Google Sheets, Airtable, Notion, Slack, Discord, Linear, GitHub Issues, and Webhook submission delivery. Zapier and Make are marked coming soon
Danger Zone — delete all submissions, delete analytics data, or delete the form
Preview & publish
Switch to Preview to fill the form exactly as a respondent would: logic fires, variables resolve, and you can add repeating-group entries. Nothing is saved — answers live in memory and reset on reload, and uploads and payments are stubbed. Click Publish when you are happy; formbase keeps your draft separate, so changes only go live when you publish. To undo edits before publishing, hit Revert unpublished changes to go back to the last published version.
Publish history
The Publish history button (clock icon) lists every published version with a timestamp, and shows each one’s Form, Emails, and Translations as they were frozen at publish. Browsing works on every plan. Restoring needs Business: pick a version, click Revert to this version, then choose Open as draft (load it into the editor without publishing) or Publish now (go live right away).
Quick search
Press Cmd K (or Ctrl K) outside the canvas to jump to any form, folder, workspace, or setting. Inside the canvas the same keys add a link instead.