What is oEmbed and how can I use it with Paperform?

Paperform is an official provider supported by Embedly. This makes embedding Paperform forms super easy for the thousands of sites that utilize Embedly directly, or the oEmbed protocol.

What are oEmbeds?

oEmbed is a format for allowing an embedded representation of a URL on third-party sites. The simple API allows a website to display embedded content (such as photos or videos) when a user posts a link to that resource - without having to parse the resource directly.

This is particularly handy for sites like Medium where you can embed a form within articles simply by pasting the URL of your forms.

Gotchas

  • Medium sometimes doesn’t embed forms when they are on a base domain name (e.g. https://newsletter.paperform.co). If your form doesn’t embed correctly, try adding /form to the end of the URL (e.g. https://newsletter.paperform.co/form).

  • Since PayPal cannot be used in an <iframe> element without direct access to the page the form is embedded in, PayPal cannot be used to take payments in forms that are embedded via oEmbeds.

  • Forms will be fixed in height and will not adjust to changes in height on the form. We have a best guess to give the form enough space to grow, but if it grows beyond that space, it will scroll within its embed.

    For sites like Medium that use Embedly directly, they can make sure use of dynamic height resizing.

    If you would like to add support for your own oEmbed consume, our oEmbed adheres to the Embedly standard. Review Embedly's documentation on provider height resizing.