A format picture allows you to define the format of data from a form in a visual or WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get - pronounced wizzy-wig) manner. For example, suppose you have a feedback form, and you want to receive an email message containing the comments on that form each time somebody submits the form. You'd create an email format in the form's configuration file that would look something like this:

format email to myaddress@somewhere.com from $email_addr name "$name"

Name: $name             Email Address: $email_addr

Comments:

$comments
.

In the above example, the first line is the format statement, the last line (the period by itself) is the format terminator, and the lines in between are the format picture, which define how the data will appear in the email message.

In the above example, you'd receive an email message that looked like this whenever somebody submitted your feedback form:

Name: Jane Schmoe       Email Address:  js@isp.com

Comments:

I like your Web site!  Good work! :-)