Guide to Build Smarter WordPress Forms with Gravity Forms

Building forms in WordPress is more than just adding input fields –  it involves configuring field behavior, managing confirmations, setting up notifications, and controlling how data is collected and displayed.

Gravity Forms is a powerful and flexible form builder that allows you to create everything from simple contact forms to advanced multi-step forms with conditional logic and dynamic settings.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to create and configure forms in Gravity Forms, customize field settings, apply conditional logic, manage confirmations and notifications, and embed your forms properly on your website.

Let’s start with a quick overview of Gravity Forms and what makes it a popular choice for WordPress users.

What is Gravity Forms?

Gravity Forms is a premium WordPress form builder designed to help users create advanced, feature-rich forms without writing code.

It supports a wide range of use cases, including:

• Contact forms
• Registration forms
• Surveys and polls
• Payment forms
• Multi-step application forms

Gravity Forms provides a drag-and-drop form builder, allowing you to add and organize fields easily. It also includes advanced features such as conditional logic, field validation, submission restrictions, email notifications, and confirmation settings.

Because of its flexibility and extensibility, Gravity Forms is widely used by developers, agencies, and businesses that need more control over how forms function and collect data.

Now, let’s create your first form.

How to Create a Form in Gravity Forms

Creating a form in Gravity Forms is straightforward and flexible. You can either start with a pre-built template or build your form from scratch.

Step 1: Install & Activate Gravity Form

• Go to Gravity form website.
• Purchase the form depends on your need.
• Go to WordPress Dashboard -> Plugins -> Add New.
• Upload the file that you downloaded.
• Click Install Now, then Activate

Once activated, you’ll see a new Forms menu added to your WordPress dashboard.

Step 2: Navigate to Add New Form

• Go to your WordPress Dashboard
• Click on Forms → New Form
• Here, you can use a Template or Start with a Blank Form

• Enter a Form Title and optional Description
• Click Create Form

You’ll now see the Gravity Forms form builder interface.

Now that the form is created, let’s add and configure fields.

Step 3: Adding Fields in Gravity Forms

Once your form is created, the next step is adding fields. Gravity Forms offers a wide range of field types that allow you to collect different kinds of information.

In the form builder interface, you’ll see available field categories such as:

• Standard Fields (Name, Email, Text, Dropdown, Radio Buttons, etc.)
• Advanced Fields (Phone, Address, Date, File Upload, etc.)
• Pricing Fields (Product, Quantity, Total, etc.)
• Post Fields (Title, Body, Category, etc.)

To add a field:

• Click on the desired field from the right panel
• Drag it into the form area
• Reorder fields by dragging them into position

You can click on any field to open its configuration settings.

Now let’s explore how to configure field settings in detail.

Step 4: Configuring Field Settings in Gravity Forms

Each field in Gravity Forms comes with multiple configuration options. When you click on a field in the form builder, you’ll see four main setting tabs:

• General
• Appearance
• Advanced
• Conditional Logic

Let’s break them down.

General Settings

The General tab allows you to control the basic functionality of a field.

Here you can:

• Set the Field Label
• Add a Description
• Mark the field as Required
• Enable the No Duplicates option

The No Duplicates option is particularly useful when you want to prevent users from submitting a value that already exists in your database (for example, duplicate email addresses or usernames).

Appearance Settings

The Appearance tab controls how the field looks on the frontend.

You can configure:

• Field Size (Small, Medium, Large)
• Placeholder Text
• Field Label Visibility
• Custom CSS Class
• Field position and layout options

These settings help you adjust the design and layout of your form without editing code.

Advanced Settings

The Advanced tab allows you to fine-tune field behavior.

Options here include:

• Setting a Default Value
• Adjusting Field Visibility (Visible, Hidden, Administrative)
• Enabling conditional logic
• Setting custom validation rules

This gives you more control over how and when fields appear.

Apply Conditional Logic

Gravity Forms allows you to apply Conditional Logic to fields. This means you can show or hide a field based on user input.

For example:

• Show additional questions only if a specific option is selected or entered

Conditional logic helps create dynamic, user-friendly forms and improves the overall experience.

Using Compact View & Field IDs

When working with large or complex forms, editing can become crowded and harder to manage. Gravity Forms provides helpful interface options to make form editing more streamlined.

To enable Compact View:

• Click on the Settings icon in the top-right corner of the form builder.

• Enable Compact View

Compact View reduces visual spacing between fields, allowing you to see more fields at once. You can also enable the option to display Field IDs while using Compact View.

Previewing Your Form

Before embedding your form on the frontend, it’s important to preview it to ensure everything works as expected.

In Gravity Forms, you can preview your form directly from the form builder.

• Click the Preview button at the top of the form builder
• The form will open in a new tab
• Test the fields, conditional logic, and required validations

Configuring Form Settings in Gravity Forms

In Gravity Forms, you can access form-level settings by clicking the Settings option at the top of the form builder. From there, you’ll find different sections such as:

• Form Settings
• Confirmations
• Notifications
• Personal Data

Let’s go through each one.

Form Settings

The Form Settings section allows you to control the overall behavior and structure of your form.

Here, you can configure:

• Form Title and Description
• Form Layout
• Required Field Indicator
• Submission Limit (limit number of entries)
• Schedule Form Availability (set start and end dates)
• Require User to Be Logged In
• Enable Spam Detection
• Enable animation when conditional logic fields appear

These options help you control who can submit the form and how it behaves over time.

Confirmation Settings

Confirmation settings define what users see after submitting the form.

You can choose to:

• Display a custom text message
• Redirect users to a specific page
• Redirect users to an external URL

This allows you to guide users to a thank-you page, offer next steps, or trigger a conversion flow.

Notification Settings

Notifications allow you to send emails after a form submission.

You can configure:

• Admin notifications (sent to the site owner)
• User notifications (sent to the person submitting the form)
• Customize the email subject and message
• Use dynamic merge tags to include submitted data

This ensures both you and your users receive submission updates.

Personal Data Settings

The Personal Data section helps you manage user data responsibly.

You can configure options related to:

• Data retention
• Data privacy
• Exporting personal data
• Erasing personal data

This is especially important for compliance with privacy regulations.

Now the form is fully configured and ready for used.

Embedding Gravity Forms on Your Website

Once your form is ready, the next step is to display it on your website. Gravity Forms provides multiple ways to embed forms.

Option 1: Direct Embed

Gravity Forms allows you to embed the form directly into an existing page or create a new page from the form builder.

To embed directly:

• Open the form that you want to embed.
• You can see the Embed button in the form builder, click on it.
• Choose whether to:
  • Add the form to an existing page
  • Create a new page
  • Select the page and confirm

Gravity Forms will automatically insert the form into the selected page.

Option 2: Using Shortcode

Each form has a unique shortcode.

To embed using shortcode:

• Edit the form, click on Embed button.
• Copy the shortcode of the form.
• Open the page on which you want to display form.
• Add the shortcode block, and paste that you copied.
• It will display the form on frontend.

Option 3: Using Gutenberg Block

If you’re using the WordPress block editor:

• Open the page or post
• Click Add Block (+)
• Search for Forms
• Select your form from the dropdown

This is the easiest method for most users.

Once you add the form to your website, you can further customize its appearance by adjusting colors, styles, enabling AJAX submission, and configuring other design settings to match your website’s look and feel.

Once your form is created and you start receiving submissions, managing those entries becomes essential. Check out our detailed guide to learn how to efficiently manage Gravity Forms submissions.

Conclusion

Gravity Forms provides a powerful and flexible way to build advanced forms in WordPress. From drag-and-drop field creation and conditional logic to confirmations, notifications, and submission restrictions, it gives you full control over how your forms function and collect data.

As your website grows and starts collecting more submissions, managing those entries efficiently becomes just as important as building the form itself. If you need advanced filtering, centralized entry management, integrating Gravity Forms with a dedicated submission manager like Form Vibes can help streamline your workflow.

FAQs on Using Gravity Form in WordPress