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Missing “Custom Field” Checkbox When Embedding Form in WordPress Site

Problem

You have tried to follow our standard instructions for embedding a form on your WordPress site, but you cannot find the “Custom Fields” checkbox that must be turned on to do so.

Solution

One possible issue is that you have the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin installed, which is overriding WordPress’s native “Custom Fields” checkbox. The ACF plugin may be hiding the necessary checkbox from your view, preventing you from toggling it on and off.

This article explains how to solve the problem of a missing “Custom Fields” checkbox caused by the plugin Advanced Custom Fields (ACF).

1. Check If You Have the Advanced Custom Fields Plugin

To determine whether this solution will work for you, you’ll first have to determine whether or not you are using the Advanced Custom Fields plugin.

To do so, navigate to your WordPress plugins by clicking Plugins from the left-hand toolbar.

Plugins.png

On the Plugins page, manually scroll through the list to look for Advanced Custom Fields, or search for it directly by typing “Advanced Custom Fields” into the search bar.

ACF.png

If you do have Advanced Custom Fields, then continue with the steps detailed below to solve the problem.

If you’re having trouble locating the “Custom Fields” checkbox and do not have Advanced Custom Fields installed, you may be looking in the wrong place. Doublecheck that you are looking in the right place based on your version of WordPress:

  • Classic WordPress places the checkbox under “Screen Options” on any Post page.
  • Newer WordPress (using the Gutenberg page editor) places it within a hamburger menu at the right-hand side of the visual page editor.

Screenshots of these two options are provided on our standard WordPress form embed instructions.

2. Add Code to Your Functions.php File

Use the following steps only if you have the Advanced Custom Fields plugin.

To prevent Advanced Custom Fields from overriding the native WordPress “Custom Fields” checkbox, you will need to insert one line of code into your WordPress theme files.  Here’s how to do that.

1. Navigate to the file called functions.php by clicking Appearance and then Editor in the left toolbar. Then, on the right-hand side of the screen under Theme Files, click the file that is titled Functions.php.

Functions_file.png

2. At the very end of the functions.php file, copy and paste this exact line of code:

add_filter('acf/settings/remove_wp_meta_box', '__return_false');

Then click the Update File button at the bottom of the screen.

Code.png
Be very careful when working within the functions.php file. You don’t want to delete or change any existing code, as it could cause your website to function improperly.

3. Revert to Our Standard Instructions for Embedding a Form in WordPress

Once you have updated your functions.php file, navigate back to the page on which you would like to embed your form. The code you just added will prevent Advanced Custom Fields from hiding the “Custom Fields” checkbox you need.

That means that from this point forward, you can follow our standard instructions for embedding a form in WordPress:

  1. Turn on the “Custom Fields” checkbox for the page on which the form will appear.
  2. Add a Custom Field. Copy in the fields for Name (the shortcode) and Value (the actual script).
  3. Insert the Name (the shortcode) wherever you’d like your form to appear on the page. Make sure that the shortcode is surrounded with brackets: {{shortcode}}.
  4. Preview your page before publishing it to make sure it looks correct and is not throwing an error.
  5. Publish your page to save your changes.

To review the above steps with detailed screenshots, please read our standard instructions for embedding a form on a WordPress website.

Troubleshooting

If you’ve followed the instructions above to fix the issue with Advanced Custom Fields and are still missing the native WordPress “Custom Fields” checkbox, it is possible that another plugin is also interfering.

Known plugins that require additional setting tweaks include the following:

  • Custom Post Type UI (CPTUI): You may need to edit the settings of your custom post types to support "Custom Fields."

Additional plugins will be added to this list as they become known.

If you’ve followed the steps above and still cannot locate the “Custom Fields” checkbox, please contact us so that we can help you. Submit a ticket here or by using the Help widget in the bottom right corner of the screen.