ColdFusion does not process inline text or standard HTML tags when it generates an XML form; therefore, you use the cfformitem tag to add formatted HTML or plain text blocks and any other display elements, such as horizontal and vertical rules, to your form.

ColdFusion converts all cfformitem type attribute values to all-lowercase. For example, if you specify type="MyType" ColdFusion converts the type name to "mytype".

ColdFusion makes no other limitations on the cfformitem type attributes that you can use in a form, but the XSLT skin must process the attributes to display the items.

Using ColdFusion skins: The skins provided in ColdFusion support the following cfformitem types:

• hrule
• text
• html

The hrule type inserts an HTML hr tag, and the text type displays unformatted plain text.

The html type displays HTML-formatted text. You can include standard HTML text markup tags, such as strong, p, ul, or li, and their attributes. For example, the following text from the Example: a simple skinnable form section shows how you could use a cfformitem tag to insert descriptive text in a form:

<cfformitem type="html">
    <b>We value your input</b>.<br>
    <em>Please tell us a little about yourself and your thoughts.</em>
</cfformitem>

Using other skins: If you use any other skin, the supported attributes and attribute values depend on the skin implementation. Get the information about the supported attributes and attribute values from the XSLT skin developer.