Jotform for Beginners
Get more done with powerful, easy-to-use online forms. Learn how in this helpful, free guide from Jotform.
Download the Book
It’s time to make a decision – Classic Forms or Card Forms?
We know this is solely based on preferences, but we put together a list of differences between the two types of forms. It is important to know the advantages, along with some typical use cases for each of them. Hopefully, the key points listed in this article would give you a better understanding of when it’s ideal to use a particular layout.
There are a few features and options unique to Card Forms.
These are subtle animations added to the form to spice things up a little. Of course, these are not just eye-candy additions, they also serve a purpose.
When there’s an error, the card will shake a little to get the user’s attention.
When navigating from one card to another, transition effects are added.
The Email element now provides email address verification right off the bat without using widgets nor 3rd party platforms.
The Email element also has a built-in error checking and suggestion feature for misspelled email addresses.
The Address element also provides cool Autocomplete and Geolocation features.
On various sections of the form builder, you will see a variety of icons (tons of them) that you can use.
Along with images and videos that you can use as your form background.
See also: Setting up the Continue Forms Later Feature in Card Forms
Remember those times when you needed to set up two forms just to save your user’s session data in our servers? Well, this time, this is achievable with a few clicks in a single Card Form.
To set it up…
To further simplify things, we have a smart way to embed Card Forms on your website. Instead of designing your form to match your website’s design, the form will automatically try its best to adapt to the look and feel of the page.
In addition to the Smart Embed feature, Card Forms have a fullscreen mode for users to click or tap on the fullscreen icon to get a full-blown immersive experience. If you want your form to open automatically with fullscreen, just enable this feature.
When viewing an embedded form on your website, you’ll notice a blue pencil icon at the top-left-hand corner. This pencil allows you (as the form owner) to change the inline embed settings of your form.
Once you click on the icon, you’d see a variety of embed options:
This new embed code can be found under the Publish tab of the Form Builder. The Floating Feedback Button embed method will place a button on any corner of your web page. You can also customize the button according to your preference.
While this is doable in Classic Forms with the use of Paragraph, Page Breaks, Image, and Header form elements, we made it a built-in feature in Card Forms this time.
At the top of the Form Builder, you would see an Edit Welcome Page button. This would allow you to customize the texts displayed on the first page, change the icon used, show or hide the number of questions on your entire form, or remove the welcome page altogether.
Some features were intentionally removed in Card Forms. These were done on purpose to match the overall look and feel of the new layout.
This was moved from the Settings tab to the bottom of the Form Builder to keep the building process streamlined.
This way, users start with the Welcome Page at the top, add form fields in the middle, then finish up with the Thank You Page at the bottom.
Yes, many users have asked us why we removed this feature, not just in the Form Builder, but in all widgets too. Card Form’s goal is to make form building as easy as possible. The goal is justified by the amount of readily available color palettes, images, and built-in features in it. Advanced customization using CSS codes is intended for advanced users who want to further customize the look and feel of their forms.
If you feel like this feature should exist on both layouts, feel free to post your comments and suggestions below or open a new Support Forum thread so we can share your feedback with the team.
Some widgets were purposely removed from Card Forms to keep everything in line with the overall functionality and design of Jotform Cards. If you search for a widget and it’s not there, that means it cannot be used in Card Forms (for now).
Do you want to create quick and short forms? Use Card Forms! Ideally, Card Forms are more suitable, but not limited to, Sign Up forms, Newsletter Subscriptions, Registration forms, and Surveys. The goal here is to get better user engagement and form completion rates.
Are you building a client intake form or a job application form? Use Classic Forms! These kinds of forms are intended to have lots of fields to fill out. So, using the traditional layout is the right approach. Moreover, if your form requires a pixel-perfect design, then choosing the Classic Forms is your first choice for CSS customizations.
Our thoughts? The decision on when to use which layout still boils down to personal preference. This shouldn’t prevent you from using Card Forms in any scenario. The guidelines and suggestions listed above are the ideal use cases, but you can still create long and complex forms using the Card Forms layout.
Our customer support team is available 24/7 and our average response time is between one to two hours.
Our team can be contacted via:
Support Forum: https://www.jotform.com/answers/
Contact Jotform Support: https://www.jotform.com/contact/
Send Comment:
2 Comments:
I like that you want our input and that you have good support for us when we need help
How can I transfer my existing card form to a classic form?