As we all know, Web forms collect data from users. In this digital era, data is not only about text files. Data can be in text format, images, audio, or even videos. So, it’s necessary to allow your users to file upload in your WordPress form.

Suppose you offer online courses and want to collect coursework from your students. It’d be handy for you and your students, to give them the ability to upload files to your website via a form. There is many more aspects where allowing file upload can make things easy for you.

But do you know how to let your website visitors upload file attachments to your WordPress form?

No worries. In this article, we will show you how you can allow your users to attach files in your WordPress website’s form without even giving them backend access. So let’s start the tutorial!

Why you should Allow File Uploading in Your WordPress Form?

There are many reasons why you might need to let your users upload a file to your WordPress site. Here are some of the most common examples:

  • Job Application Form where candidates can upload their resume and cover letter.
  • Online Admission Form where candidates can upload photos and documents.
  • Online Courses Form to receive course works.
  • Contest or Plugin Giveaway Forms where users can attach pictures as image files.
  • User Submission Forms where users can attach a blog post or image they want to share.
  • Customer Services Forms where prospective clients can upload documents providing extra information to help your organization understand their issues and get the correct support.
  • CSV File Upload Forms where visitors can send you orders or timesheets.
  • Partnership Forms where potential affiliating businesses and companies can attach their partnership proposals.

Ideally, we all want to keep our visitors on our website as long as possible. But for most of the visitors, form filling is an exhausting process, and adding an extra field makes it even worse. That is why you need to simplify things for your visitors to encourage them to provide vital information for your form.

On the other hand, sending a separate email with file attachments is pretty time-consuming and inconvenient for both your user and you. Instead of that, you can create forms that include all the fields you need, so you can collect all information at once. Allowing file upload in WordPress form is one of the best ways to make it easier for you and your users to get more info quickly. Using the file upload form field you can let users upload images, PDF files, Word documents, or other types of files. Moreover, your form will automatically save the form data in your WordPress database.

Why Do You Need a Plugin for Building File Upload Form?

Building HTML forms with an upload field are not easy. You need to have a basic knowledge of HTML. Moreover, adding a file upload form in WordPress to a plain HTML/CSS website took hours of coding.

On the other hand, using a form builder on your site requires nothing complex. It takes only a few moments to build a form using WordPress form builder plugins. It not only saves your time but also energy in creating forms on your site. Also, your user can easily add media to your form without facing any hassle. Plus, they do a lot more than just upload files.

Which is the Best Plugin for Building WordPress File Upload Form?

To easily create custom forms that work as a frontend uploader, you need the right WordPress form builder plugin. For that, we recommend you the Live Forms plugin.

But you might be thinking why Live Forms? Let’s make it clear for you.

There are many WordPress form builder plugins available on the WordPress.org directory. But assuming you want the best one to build the file upload form, we’re giving you the perfect option right here.

Live Forms is one of the lightweight and super-fast among WordPress form builders. Its drag and drop method gives you an elegant way to build and manage any type of form. Moreover, this plugin is packed with ultra-smart functionalities like file upload, conditional logic, repeat field, multi-column, spam protection, etc.

Live Forms allows users to customize file upload forms in various ways. You will get the following options to customize your file upload form field:

  • Conditional Logic: Its conditional logic feature provides additional instructions depending on a particular response. That means only relevant form fields will appear to your users depending on their previous answers. Which makes your form more relevant and reduces the abandonment rate.
  • Restrict File Types: You might want to allow a specific file type for a specific file upload form. Such as, for your photo contest form you might only want to receive .jpg or .png files. To keep that in mind, Live Forms allows you to select the file type you want to receive.
  • Limit File Sizes: Its limit file size feature allows you to limit the size of the files your users allow to upload. Which helps you preserve your storage space.

How to Allow File Upload in Your WordPress Form?

Now, you might be wondering how you can allow your users to file upload in your WordPress form. Don’t worry. Here, we will show you how to allow file upload in your WordPress form in three easy steps using Live Forms.

Step-1: Install Live Forms on Your WordPress Site

To allow file upload in your WordPress site, the first thing you need to do is head over to WPForms’ pricing page and purchase a plan.

Once you have purchased the plan, download the Live Forms zip file. Don’t forget to copy your license key.

Next, open your WordPress site’s admin dashboard and navigate to the “Plugins > Add New” menu.

Now, click on the “Upload Plugin” button and then the “Choose File” button. Choose the downloaded Live Forms zip file and press the Install Now button.

Once the plugin is installed, Activate it, and a new menu named “Forms” will be added to your admin menu bar.

Now, go to “Forms > Settings”. Here you will see the “General” and “License” options. Click on the “License” options, and paste the copied license key into the text field. Lastly, click on the “Save Settings” button.

Congratulations! You are ready to build your own file upload form.

Step-2:  Create a File Upload Form

In this step, we will show you how to create a file upload form. For that, go to “Forms > Add New”. On the following page, you will see different types of ready-to-use templates. For now, click on “Start From Ground”.

File Upload in WordPress Form

Now, you will be redirected to the form building page. Here you will be able to add form fields by simply dragging the fields and dropping them to the desired position.

Firstly, add the form name in the text box right beside the “Form Name” option. For this tutorial, we are building a photo contest form. So, we have named the form “Photo Contest Form”.

File Upload in WordPress Form

Live Forms offers you lots of form fields in three different categories. Just drag and drop the fields you need. Try to make your form as simple as possible. We are just adding the name, email, and file upload field.

File Upload in WordPress Form

Now, take the curser on each field, you will see the setting button for each of them on the right side of the field. Once you click the setting button, you will see a list of setting options on the left side of the screen.

  • Label – To help your site visitor distinguish the form field’s purpose by naming it.
  • Placeholder Text – To demonstrate how information should be.
  • Note- To give a description explaining what the field is all about.
  • Note Position – Place where you want the note to be shown.
  • Max Filesize – To specify the file size to be uploaded by your visitors. This setting defaults to MB.
  • Allowed Extensions – To set the type of file you want to allow your users to upload.
  • Condition Logic – To set up when to show and hide any field based on the input.
  • Required – This setting is to make uploading a file a requirement.

Once you have completed field settings, you can customize the submit button from below the form.

Now, go to settings and check “Basic Settings”, “Email Notification” and “Look and Feel” options. You will get different options for customizing your form such as form description, successful form submission message, email notification setting, form’s look, etc.

Once you are done, click the “Save Form” button. Now, your file upload form is ready to publish.

Step -3: Publish the File Upload Form to Your Website

After saving the form, click on the “Embed” button in the upper left corner of the screen.

File Upload in WordPress Form

Now, a pop-up will appear with the form shortcode. Copy the shortcode and paste it onto your desired page.

File Upload in WordPress Form

Lastly, publish the page, and you are done!

Now that you know how to allow file upload in your WordPress form, you never have to worry about missing any information from your users. So what are you waiting for? If you have not yet included a file upload field in your form, just go ahead!

Also, if you didn’t find some information you were looking for, don’t forget to let us know in the comment section below!

To get more tutorials like Create A Custom User Login Form in WordPress and Make A Smart Form With Conditional Logic check our Blog page.

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