Plain Text Fields

What is a plain text field?

A plain text field stores a string of characters with no formatting — no bold, no links, no headings. It is the simplest and most common field type.

When to use plain text

Titles and names

Every collection's primary field is almost always plain text:

• Blog post title
• Team member name
• Product name
• Event title
• Company name

Short descriptions

One-line summaries that do not need formatting:

• Excerpt: "A practical guide to CMS architecture."
• Tagline: "Built for designers who code."
• Meta description: "Learn how to structure your Webflow CMS collections."

Identifiers

Codes, IDs, and labels:

• SKU: "TRL-2025-001"
• Course code: "CS101"
• License number: "DRE-123456"

Single-value text

Data that is inherently unformatted:

• Address lines
• Social media handles
• Short quotes

Plain text vs. rich text

Consideration	Plain Text	Rich Text
Length	Short (1 line to 1 paragraph)	Long (multiple paragraphs)
Formatting	None	Headings, bold, italic, lists, links
Input UI	Text input or textarea	WYSIWYG editor
Output	Raw string	HTML
Use case	Titles, names, excerpts	Body content, detailed descriptions
Sort/filter	Easy	Difficult

Rule of thumb: if it fits in a tweet (280 characters), it is probably plain text. If it needs headings and lists, use rich text.

Character limits

Set character limits on plain text fields to enforce quality:

Field	Recommended Limit	Reason
Page title	60 characters	SEO: Google truncates after ~60
Meta description	160 characters	SEO: search snippet length
Excerpt	200 characters	Card display space
Person name	100 characters	Reasonable max
Slug	100 characters	URL length

Character limits serve two purposes:

1. Quality — force editors to write concise, punchy text.
2. Layout — prevent text from overflowing card designs.

Validation

Beyond character limits, consider:

• Required — the primary field should always be required. Items without names are useless.
• Unique — slugs and identifiers should be unique within the collection.
• Help text — display guidance like "Keep under 60 characters for SEO" below the input.

Tips

1. Use plain text for titles, always — rich text titles break sorting, reference dropdowns, and URL generation.
2. Set character limits — even if your CMS does not enforce them, document the expected lengths.
3. Help text reduces mistakes — "150-160 characters for search snippets" is more useful than just "Meta description".
4. Do not use plain text for long content — if editors need formatting, do not force them into a plain text field. They will try to use markup or ALL CAPS for emphasis.
5. Separate short and long text — if you need both a short description (for cards) and a long description (for pages), use two separate fields. Do not rely on truncation.