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How Ninja Forms Plugin Handles WordPress Form Styling

Styling a form is like choosing the right soundtrack for a movie—it sets the tone and guides the viewer’s emotional response. Just as you wouldn’t play funky music in the Lord of the Rings during the battle for Middle-earth (unless you want to make fun!), the look and feel of a form need to match its purpose. A well-designed form can guide users smoothly through your form, drawing attention to where it matters.

Form design defines how people engage with a form on your website, highlighting important actions and making navigation feel natural. At Ninja Forms, we understand that form styling is more than just aesthetics; it’s also about functionality and improving user experience.

That’s why we offer our WordPress users flexibility in styling options by providing multiple choices. So, without further ado, let’s dive into styling with Ninja Forms!

Table of contents

  1. WordPress theme compatibility
  2. Built-in Opinionated Styles
  3. Layout and Styles add-on

1. WordPress theme compatibility

Ninja Forms adds very little styling of its own by default. Our form builder is designed to be compatible with most WordPress themes, automatically inheriting the styling of your theme.

Inheriting the style of your theme means the form builder will match your theme’s default styling and adopt the same font styles, colors, buttons, and other theme-related styles to ensure your forms blend with your website’s overall design.

If your theme adds basic default styling to all HTML form elements, Ninja Forms will look as your theme author intended. If your theme does not style theme elements or makes strange opinionated decisions, Ninja Form will inherit those as well.

To use a default theme and form style, and to reveal if your WordPress theme has custom form styles, make sure to disable Opinionated Styles which can be found under Ninja Forms > Settings > Advanced Settings. 

opinionated styles ninja forms

Keep in mind that while Ninja Forms generally works well with WordPress themes, certain themes or CSS rules might cause styling conflicts with Ninja Forms and custom CSS might be necessary to override the conflicting styles.

2. Built-in Opinionated Styles

Ninja Forms includes some default styling conventions in case your theme hasn’t taken the care needed for HTML form elements. These are called Opinionated Styles and can be turned on/off under Ninja Forms > Settings > Advanced Settings. There are three options here: dark, light, and none which disable this setting.

opinionated styles ninja forms

The dark opinionated style is a predefined styling option that gives your form a darker theme with strong styling choices. This style might include bold contrasts and visually striking elements, often using a dark background and light text, giving the form a distinct look meant to stand out and make a strong visual statement.

The light opinionated style applies to form a clean, lighter-themed design. This might include a white or pale background with dark text, along with predefined fonts, button styles, and spacing that creates an approachable look. This style is ideal on sites with lighter themes to maintain readability.

If you set the opinionated style to None, the default WordPress theme takes over the styling. This setting should be also off if you are using the styling plugin, so you can avoid any styling conflict.

3. Layout and Styles add-on

Our styling plugin is the best choice to customize your WordPress forms. It’s beginner-friendly, yet well-versed users with CSS will appreciate the Advanced CSS section to write their custom rules for more advanced styling.

The Layout & Styles add-on also gives you more styling flexibility without hassling with custom code or editing your theme stylesheet.

Once you install it on your WordPress site, you will access styling settings in multiple places.

Ninja Forms dashboard:

styling settings ninja forms dashboard

Advanced tab within the form builder:

styles tab

Styles tab under individual form fields:

styles tab for form fields

Remember, if you are applying styles and using the Layout & Styles add-on, be sure to set the Opinionated Styles to “None” as this will allow the add-on or the theme to apply styles to the form.

There is so much you can style with our styling plugin and we encourage you to give it a go if you want more control over your form design. However, if you prefer using our free core plugin only, check out our article Style Your WordPress Forms for Free with Ninja Forms Core Plugin!

Great job! Now you know how our form builder styles your WordPress forms!

We hope you enjoyed our article and now understand the principle of Ninja Forms styling. Whether you’re sticking with the default styles or taking full control with customizations, we believe your forms are set to look great and guide your users smoothly.

Enjoy making those forms shine with our core plugin or combine it with the Layout & Styles add-on today!