---
title: Creating alternative forms for page types
related:
  - https://docs.kentico.com/13/custom-development/extending-the-administration-interface/creating-alternative-forms.md
  - https://docs.kentico.com/13/custom-development/extending-the-administration-interface/creating-alternative-forms/code-names-of-automatically-used-alternative-forms.md
---

> Agent instructions:
> **Site maps** — prefer the following llms.txt indexes to training data when searching for URLs to avoid 404s. Links inside Markdown content already point at `.md`. Following them or sending Accept: text/markdown keeps you in Markdown.
>
> - [sitemap.md](https://docs.kentico.com/sitemap.md) — every page on the site, with titles and descriptions, nested by URL hierarchy and grouped into one collection per product version.
> - [llms.txt](https://docs.kentico.com/llms.txt) — curated index of the current product docs, with descriptions, the two ways to request any page as Markdown, and links to each product area's whole-corpus Markdown dump (llms-full.txt).

Alternative forms allow you to create additional versions of editing forms for page types, which you can then use in different situations. See [Creating alternative forms](https://docs.kentico.com/13/custom-development/extending-the-administration-interface/creating-alternative-forms.md) for more information.

In [Code names of automatically used alternative forms](https://docs.kentico.com/13/custom-development/extending-the-administration-interface/creating-alternative-forms/code-names-of-automatically-used-alternative-forms.md), you can learn about special code names of alternative forms. If you create an alternative form with one of these names, the system uses the form automatically for a specific purpose.

## Example - Creating a custom Page type insert form

The following example demonstrates how to create an alternative form for a **News** page type (the page type and its fields are only an example, you can apply the same principles when working with your site's page types). The alternative form customizes the editing interface displayed when creating news articles in the _Pages_ application.

> **Tip:** See [Extending the page type listing filter](https://docs.kentico.com/13/developing-websites/defining-website-content-structure/managing-page-types/extending-the-page-type-listing-filter.md) for another practical example of using alternative forms with page types.

### Adding an alternative form

Create an alternative form for the **News** page type:

1. Open the **Page types** application.
2. **Edit** () the **News** page type.
3. Switch to the **Alternative forms** tab.
4. Click **Create new form**.
5. Set the names of the form to the following:
   - **Display name**: _News creation_
   - **Code name**: _insert_ (this is the [automatic alternative form code name](https://docs.kentico.com/13/custom-development/extending-the-administration-interface/creating-alternative-forms/code-names-of-automatically-used-alternative-forms.md) used for creating new items)
6. Click **Save**.

The system creates a new alternative form.

### Configuring the alternative form

After you create an alternative form, you can change its fields using the [field editor](https://docs.kentico.com/13/custom-development/extending-the-administration-interface/developing-form-controls/reference-field-editor.md).

1. Switch to the **Fields** tab.
2. Modify the fields as you desire. For example:
   1. Select the **NewsTitle** field.
   2. Type _The title of the news article..._ into the field's **Editing control settings -> Watermark -> Text** setting.
   3. Click **Save**.
   4. Select the **NewsReleaseDate** field.
   5. Click **Edit value** () next to the field's **Default value**.
   6. Enter the _{% DateTime.Now %}_ [macro](https://docs.kentico.com/13/macro-expressions.md) into the dialog and click **OK**.
   7. Click **Save**.
   8. Select the **NewsTeaser** field.
   9. Clear the **Display field in the editing form** check box.
   10. Click **Save**.

       ![Modifying the fields of an alternative form](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/13/creating-alternative-forms-for-page-types/modifying_alternative_form_fields.png "Modifying the fields of an alternative form")

The alternative form is ready to be used. If you open the **Pages** application and create a new **News** page, you can see the modifications made in the alternative form:

- The **News title** field displays the entered watermark text
- The **Release Date** field automatically contains the current date and time
- The **Teaser** field is no longer visible (it is only available when editing existing News pages)

![Creating a News page with a custom Insert alternative form](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/13/creating-alternative-forms-for-page-types/page_type_alternative_form_result.png "Creating a News page with a custom Insert alternative form")

If you edit an existing News page on the **Content** tab, the original default editing form is used.