How to create a PayPal Joomla Form

Published in Convert Forms
Updated 31 Mar, 2022

Did you know that you can create a PayPal form with Convert Forms? Your users can now get redirected to PayPal after successfully submitting your form, thus giving you the ability to collect donations or sell a product.

How to Create a PayPal Form in Joomla

Start by creating a new Form via Components > Convert Forms > Forms > New or edit an existing one. Once you are in your Form, you will need to add a few fields into your form. Below you can field all fields required for your PayPal form to work.

Decide on your Payment Type

Your Payment can be one of the following:

  • Receive donations
  • Sell products

If you are receiving donations, you will need to add the following field:

Field Type Field Name Field Value
Hidden cmd _donations

If you are selling products, you will need to add the following field:

Field Type Field Name Field Value
Hidden cmd _xclick

After deciding on the Payment Type field, you can now add the fields that say who will receive the payment, the item name that describes what your users will be paying for, the amount of items your user will be buying as well as the amount of the payment, currency and an item image.

Field Type Field Name Field Value
Number or Textbox amount 5
Hidden business [email protected]
Hidden item_name My Item Name
Hidden item_number 1
Hidden image_url Image URL of Item
Hidden currency_code USD

To return your users to a specifc page after they have successfully made a transaction, you will need to add the following field in your form:

Field Type Field Name Field Value
Hidden return URL of a page on your site where users will be redirected once they make a transaction

Note: You will need to enable Auto Return on your PayPal account page. Read more here: How do I use PayPal's Auto Return feature to redirect customers back to my website?

To return your users to a specifc page after they have cancelled a payment, you will need to add the following field in your form:

Field Type Field Name Field Value
Hidden cancel_return URL of a page on your site where users will be redirected after they have cancelled a payment

Shipping cost

To set a shipping cost, create the following field in your form:

Field Type Field Name Field Value
Hidden shipping Set your shipping cost

Lastly, you should set the Form Submission Redirect URL settings to point to PayPal. To do so, go to your Form > Submission and set the following:

Setting Name Setting Value
Sucessful Submission URL Redirect URL
Redirect URL https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr
Pass Submission Data To Redirect URL Enable

How your Form's Submission setting should look like:

Convert Forms PayPal Payment Form Submission Settings

After adding the above fields, your form should look something along these lines:

Convert Forms PayPal Payment Form Frontend

Your users can now set the donation amount, press the Donate button and after successfully submitting the form, they will be redirected to paypal to send the donation.

Donation PayPal Redirection:

Convert Forms PayPal Donation

Payment PayPal Redirection:

Convert Forms PayPal Payment

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I pre-set the amount of the donation/payment?

You can set your amount field to be a Hidden Field instead of a Textbox or a Number so you can define the amount your donation or payment will have once your users get redirected to PayPal.

Field Type Field Name Field Value
Hidden amount 5

Can I calculate the amount based on field values?

Whether you have a simple or a complex calculation, using the Field Calculations you can now pass the calculated total as the amount to your payment or donation.

How can I test my form in PayPal sandbox?

You can test your form in sandbox mode by usng the following Redirect URL, instead of the live PayPal URL mentioned above.

Setting Name Setting Value
Sucessful Submission URL Redirect URL
Redirect URL https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr
Pass Submission Data To Redirect URL Enable

How can I set the language when redirected to PayPal?

To set the language of PayPal when redirecting the user to make a payment, you will need to add the following Field in your form:

Field Type Field Name Field Value
Hidden lc GR

You can find a list of Country Codes, here.