Add Placeholder Text to Fields

Would you like to add placeholder text to fields in your forms? Placeholder text can help guide your users in filling out your forms, either by providing instructions or showing an example format. This tutorial will show you how to add placeholder text to a field in Convert Forms.

Why Use Placeholder Text?

Placeholder text improves form usability by giving users context before they type or select anything. It can serve as a hint, an example format (like [email protected]), or a prompt (like Please select a department).

It’s especially useful when you need to clarify the expected input without taking up extra space with labels or descriptions.

Adding Placeholder Text to Input Fields

Input fields, such as Name and Email, are great candidates for placeholder text because you usually want the user to type in specific information.

For example, let’s say you want to guide users to enter a valid email address. Here’s how to add a placeholder to an Email field:

1. Create a new form or edit an existing one.
2. Add a new field to your form (or click on an existing one in the form builder).
3. In the field options panel, locate the Input Placeholder option.
4. Enter your desired placeholder text (e.g., [email protected]).

The placeholder text will now appear inside the input field as a light gray hint until the user types something in.

Adding Placeholder Text to Dropdown Fields

Placeholder text is also useful in Dropdown fields. It helps users understand they need to make a selection and prevents a value from being pre-selected by default.

By default, dropdown fields automatically select the first option by default. This can lead to users submitting the form without actually making a conscious choice.

To avoid that, you can set placeholder text that behaves like a disabled option with an empty value. This improves form accuracy and helps validation logic work correctly.

Here’s how to add placeholder text to a Dropdown field:

1. Add a Dropdown field to your form (or click on an existing one).
2. In the field settings panel, find the Input Placeholder setting
3. Enter the text you’d like users to see as a prompt (e.g., -- Please Select --).

Convert Forms will automatically add the following option to the top of your dropdown:

<option value="" disabled>Please Select</option>

This ensures:

• No item is selected by default
• Browser validation will treat the field as invalid until a real option is selected.
• It aligns visually with how other required fields behave

This approach keeps your forms consistent and helps prevent submission errors when using conditional logic or validation rules.