How to Design and Save a Web Form

When you create a web form, Inkfree does the first draft for you. The designer opens with a working form already built from the template, and your job is to arrange it so it reads well rather than to build it from nothing.

To reopen a form later, click Web Forms in the sidebar and click the form's row.

What Inkfree Builds for You

The designer reads the template and creates one form field for every field assigned to the signer role you chose. Each one arrives with the settings it already had on the template:

• the label and placeholder text
• whether it is required
• its character limit
• any custom validation pattern
• its default value
• the choices on a dropdown

Field types are matched as closely as the form allows, so a multi-line box becomes a text area, a dropdown stays a dropdown, and a date field stays a date field.

Signature, initials, and date-signed fields are not included. Those are captured on the document itself while the person signs, so they stay where they belong.

Arranging the Layout

This is a drag-and-drop designer, so you can reorder blocks, split the form across rows, and add headings or explanatory text between groups of questions. Most people fill these in on a phone, so short groups with clear headings work better than one long column of inputs.

Editing the layout does not change the template. You are changing how the questions are presented, not which fields the document has.

Keeping Fields Mapped to the Template

This is the part worth understanding, because it decides whether an answer actually reaches the document.

Inkfree matches each form field back to the document by its Data Label. When someone submits the form, the answer is written into the document field carrying the same label, for that signer. Two things follow from that:

• Every field needs a Data Label. If one is missing when you save, Inkfree stops and tells you which type of field to fix: Missing Data Label! Please assign a Data Label to the Text field. Select the form and update its properties. Select the form block in the designer and set the label in its properties.
• A field you add by hand has nothing to map to. The template has no field with that label, so the answer has nowhere to go.

When you save a form containing a field like that, Inkfree opens a dialog headed Field Not Linked to Template:

You have added a field that is not mapped to the underlying Template. You can edit the template to add this field, or you can choose to save the form anyway.

You have two sensible routes:

1. Add the field to the template. Choosing Edit Template opens the template in a new tab at the field-placement step. Add the field for that signer and save. Inkfree syncs the change back into the open designer and confirms with Template updates synced successfully!
2. Save the form anyway. The question still gets asked and the answer is still recorded with the submission. It simply will not appear on the document.

Tip: If a question exists only to help you route or triage the request, saving it unmapped is fine. If it needs to appear on the signed paperwork, put it on the template.

Saving

Save the design once the layout is right. Inkfree runs the Data Label check, then confirms with Design saved successfully!

If you try to leave with unsaved work, a Discard Changes? prompt appears first, so you have to make the call deliberately.

Renaming, Updating, and Deleting

Back in the Web Forms list, each row has an options menu with Rename, Update, and Delete. Deleting asks you to confirm the form by name, so you cannot remove the wrong one by mistake.

Next Step

The form is ready to go out with a document. Continue with how to send a document with a web form, or see troubleshooting web forms if a save is being blocked.