Customize Form Appearance with the Formidable Form Styler

Knowledge Base → Styles → Customize Form Appearance with the Formidable Form Styler

The Styles section in Formidable gives you the ability to create and customize multiple styling templates that can be applied on a form-by-form basis. Coding experience is not necessary with our easy-to-use form styler.

Get Better Forms FREE!

Access the Form Styler

For quick access to the Form Styler, navigate the Formidable → Forms list and click the icon in the Actions column.

Create a new style

— Multiple stylesheets are a premium feature —

If you want to generate a new style template for your forms, follow the steps below.

Choose a form and click the Style tab.
Click the + New Style link.
Add a style name. Click the Create new style button.
You will be redirected to the Form Styler, where you may begin customizing your new style template.
Click the Update button to save your changes.

If you need more styling options than the Form Styler provides, you may add custom CSS using the Custom CSS tab in your Formidable → Global Settings page or in your theme's style.css file. It will be applied to every form that uses Formidable styling.

Edit a style

If you want to update or change an existing style template, follow the steps below.

Select your form, and click the Style tab.
Select your applied style template and click the Edit Style button.

Or by clicking the menu icon and selecting Edit.
You will be redirected to the Form Styler, where you may begin editing your chosen template.
To find the style class associated with the template, go to the General section and look for Style Class.
Click the Update button to save your changes.

If you update your style templates, but your form still does not reflect the changes you made, a possible reason might be that your theme's or another plugin's style rules conflict with the ones you set up. Overriding the theme styling is one approach to solving this.

Set a default template

Any template can be set as your default style. The default style will be applied automatically to any new forms unless the style template is changed.

Go to the Formidable → Style tab.
Choose a style template from the left sidebar. Click the menu icon and select Set as Default.
The chosen style will then become the new default style.

Rename a style

If you want to rename a style template, follow the steps below.

Select your form, and click the Style tab.
Choose a style template. Click the menu icon and select Rename.
Add a new style name. Click the Rename style button.
The style template immediately updates to reflect the name change.

Duplicate a style

If you want to duplicate a style template, follow the steps below.

Select your form, and click the Style tab.
Choose a style template. Click the menu icon and select Duplicate.
Add a new style name. Click the Duplicate style button.
You will be taken to the Form Styler, where you may begin editing the template you have duplicated.
Click the Update button to save your changes.

Reset a style

If you want to reset a style template to its default setting, follow the steps below.

Select your form, and click the Style tab.
Choose a style template. Click the menu icon and select Reset to Defaults.
Click the Reset style button to reset the style to its default configuration.
The style template immediately updates to reflect the changes.

Delete a style

Only styles that have not been specified as default styles can be deleted. To delete a style template, follow the instructions below.

Select the style template from the Custom Styles section that you want to delete.
Click the menu icon and select Delete.

Note: If you delete a style that is being used on a form, the styling for that form will switch to the Default Style.

Manage styles

To alter the styling on each form, follow the steps listed below.

Choose a form and click the Style tab.
In the left sidebar, you will see these sections:
- - Default Style: The style template you have selected as default.
  - Custom Styles: All the custom style templates you have created.
  - Formidable Styles: All the Formidable style templates you can access.
Select a style template and click the Install and apply style button.

Or by clicking the menu icon and selecting Apply.
That's it! On the right side of the styler, a preview of your form is created automatically using the selected style template..
If you need to manage the style templates for all your forms, go to Formidable → Global Settings → Manage Styles and choose the styling you want to apply for each form.

Override theme styling

If you find that your theme is influencing the look of your forms, you can instruct Formidable Forms to override your theme's styling. Follow the directions below to accomplish this.

Select your form, and click the Style tab.
Select your applied style template and click the Edit Style button.

Or by clicking the menu icon and selecting Edit.
Check the Override theme styling box. Doing this will add !important to many of the lines in the Formidable Forms CSS stylesheet to prioritize your form's styling over your theme's styling.
Click the Update button to save your settings.

Preview a style

You can preview how a style will appear on a form with the following options:

View my form: Click this button to preview the style template on your current form.
View sample form: Click this button to preview the style template on a sample form.

Styling options

Checkbox and Radio fields Style

Add custom styling to the checkbox and radio button fields of your form by selecting a custom text size, weight, and color for both field types. Choose between multiple rows or single row for the layout.

Buttons Style

By default, the button color is set to blue. This styling is applied to all buttons used on the site including multi-paged form buttons (Next and Previous), Repeater buttons (Remove and Add), and Submit button.
Visual Form Styler Button Styling

Disable button styling: If disabled, you may not see the change take effect until you make two more styling changes or click Update button.
On Hover and Click: Styling options for both On Hover and On Click are identical. Define the background color, border, text color.

The padding box is a shorthand property that can contain up to four values for top, right, bottom, and left.

Form Messages Style

Styling options for both Success and Error messages are identical. Define the background color, border, text color and size.
Visual Form Styler Form Messages Style

Examples

Center a form on the page

If you would like to have your form centered on the page where it is displayed, go to your form Styles and select Center form on page. Please note that this will only work if the max width of the form is less than 100%, so you may also need to change Max Width under the General tab to 80% or lower.
Visual Form Styler Center Form

Only show bottom border in field

If you would like to remove the field borders and only show the bottom border for Default, Active, Error, and Inactive states, follow the instructions below:

Go to Formidable → Styles.
In Field Settings, change the Corners to 0px.
In Field Colors:
- Change the Thickness to 0px 0px 2px 0px for Default and Error states.
- Check the box that says Remove box shadow for Default and Active states.
Click the Update button and your fields should now look like this.

Styling placeholder text

To change the color of the placeholder text inside a field, go to Formidable → Styles → Field Colors. Look for the Read Only tab and select the color you want from the Text selector. Note: This will not work if you are styling a Dropdown placeholder text.
Visual Form Styler Placeholder text read only

Set transparent colors

Need a transparent background on your form? Most of the color options in the styling settings will use 'transparent' for the color when left blank. Select the setting, remove the current color value, and save the style.

Set font family

If you would like to change the font that is used in your forms, navigate to Styles → General and refer to the image below to find the Font Family setting. Insert a single font or a series of comma-separated fallback font options in double quotes.
Visual Form Styler Enable RTL support

If you would like your theme to set the fonts, you can clear out this setting. If it is blank, this setting will be ignored.

To use a Google font, add it here the same way as if you were adding it in CSS. You will need to load the font in your theme. Once you use the font and test it on your site, the same CSS will work for your forms too.

Note: If a font is two words, be sure to use quotes around it.

Add side margins on buttons

You may have noticed that when you add "10px" into the Buttons → Margin setting, it only adds margin on the top and bottom of the buttons. To add margins on the right and left, use something like "10px 10px".

Enable RTL Support

If you would like your form to have RTL support enabled, follow the steps below:

Navigate to Formidable → Styles.
In General:
- Select Right from Alignment.
- Select Right to Left from Direction.
In Field Labels:
- Select Right from Position.
- Select Right from Align.

However, keep in mind that this only enables support for your forms, not the rest of your website. Your theme also need to have RTL support.

— Premium Feature —

Add a background image

To add an image for the background of your form, follow the steps below.

Click the Upload background image button and select your preferred image.
You can change the Image Opacity after you have uploaded an image. The background image opacity uses percent inputs like 100%, 50%, etc. Additionally, you can utilize floating values in the range of 0 and 1 (such as 0.5 and 1), where 0 turns the background image fully transparent, and 1 turns it fully opaque.

Change color opacity

The color picker is available for most of the sections in the Form Styler. You can select a color or insert the HEX, RGB, RGBA value in the input box. If you want to set the opacity, use the Alpha slider on the right side of the color picker.
Visual Form Styler Color Picker

Styling frm_color_block class

To change the default background color of the frm_color_block CSS layout class, go to your form Style → Field Colors. Look for the Border selector and choose a color.
Visual Form Styler frm_color_block CSS class

Troubleshooting

Form looks different on a page

When the form styler shows you one result, and you see another result on the front-end, this means your theme is overriding some of the form styling.

Make sure Formidable styling is enabled in the Global settings.
Check the styling settings for the specific form to make sure the styling is not turned off.
Turn on the option to override the theme styling as described above.
Clear all caches including browser cache, and any caching plugins or server caching.
If there are still problems, temporarily switch to a different theme to verify the conflict is coming from your theme. If you confirm this is a theme conflict, let us know and we can add it to our to do list.
If the form has the same problem with a different theme, check the page HTML and resolve major HTML issues.

Form styling loaded via PHP

Each time the plugin is updated or the styling settings are saved, a new CSS file is generated in plugins/formidable/css/formidableforms.css. On some servers, this file cannot be generated based on file permissions or server permissions. When the file is not created, a dynamic version will be used with a URL like wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=frmpro_css.

Try the steps below to create the static css file. Save the form styling settings after each step.

If you are required to enter FTP information when updating plugins, the plugin doesn't have permission to create this css file. Contact your web host for help disabling this FTP credentials requirement.
Delete the Formidable Forms plugin and install it again. This may correct basic file permissions issues.
Check the folder permissions on the formidable/css folder via FTP to make sure they are high enough to allow the folder to be writable.
Save the styling settings again.