text.mdx

title	Text Field
label	Text
order	180
desc	Text field types simply save a string to the database and provide the Admin Panel with a text input. Learn how to use Text fields, see examples and options.
keywords	text, fields, config, configuration, documentation, Content Management System, cms, headless, javascript, node, react, nextjs

The Text Field is one of the most commonly used fields. It saves a string to the database and provides the Admin Panel with a simple text input.

To add a Text Field, set the type to text in your Field Config:

import type { Field } from 'payload'

export const MyTextField: Field = {
  // ...
  type: 'text', // highlight-line
}

Config Options

Option	Description
name *	To be used as the property name when stored and retrieved from the database. More details.
label	Text used as a field label in the Admin Panel or an object with keys for each language.
unique	Enforce that each entry in the Collection has a unique value for this field.
minLength	Used by the default validation function to ensure values are of a minimum character length.
maxLength	Used by the default validation function to ensure values are of a maximum character length.
validate	Provide a custom validation function that will be executed on both the Admin Panel and the backend. More details.
index	Build an index for this field to produce faster queries. Set this field to true if your users will perform queries on this field's data often.
saveToJWT	If this field is top-level and nested in a config supporting Authentication, include its data in the user JWT.
hooks	Provide Field Hooks to control logic for this field. More details.
access	Provide Field Access Control to denote what users can see and do with this field's data. More details.
hidden	Restrict this field's visibility from all APIs entirely. Will still be saved to the database, but will not appear in any API or the Admin Panel.
defaultValue	Provide data to be used for this field's default value. More details.
localized	Enable localization for this field. Requires localization to be enabled in the Base config.
required	Require this field to have a value.
admin	Admin-specific configuration. More details.
custom	Extension point for adding custom data (e.g. for plugins)
hasMany	Makes this field an ordered array of text instead of just a single text.
minRows	Minimum number of texts in the array, if hasMany is set to true.
maxRows	Maximum number of texts in the array, if hasMany is set to true.
typescriptSchema	Override field type generation with providing a JSON schema
virtual	Provide true to disable field in the database, or provide a string path to link the field with a relationship. See Virtual Fields

* An asterisk denotes that a property is required.

Admin Options

To customize the appearance and behavior of the Text Field in the Admin Panel, you can use the admin option:

import type { Field } from 'payload'

export const MyTextField: Field = {
  // ...
  admin: {
    // highlight-line
    // ...
  },
}

The Text Field inherits all of the default admin options from the base Field Admin Config, plus the following additional options:

Option	Description
placeholder	Set this property to define a placeholder string in the text input.
autoComplete	Set this property to a string that will be used for browser autocomplete.
rtl	Override the default text direction of the Admin Panel for this field. Set to true to force right-to-left text direction.

Example

import type { CollectionConfig } from 'payload'

export const ExampleCollection: CollectionConfig = {
  slug: 'example-collection',
  fields: [
    {
      name: 'pageTitle', // required
      type: 'text', // required
      required: true,
    },
  ],
}

Custom Components

Field

Server Component

import type React from 'react'
import { TextField } from '@payloadcms/ui'
import type { TextFieldServerComponent } from 'payload'

export const CustomTextFieldServer: TextFieldServerComponent = ({
  clientField,
  path,
  schemaPath,
  permissions,
}) => {
  return (
    <TextField
      field={clientField}
      path={path}
      schemaPath={schemaPath}
      permissions={permissions}
    />
  )
}

Client Component

'use client'
import React from 'react'
import { TextField } from '@payloadcms/ui'
import type { TextFieldClientComponent } from 'payload'

export const CustomTextFieldClient: TextFieldClientComponent = (props) => {
  return <TextField {...props} />
}

Label

Server Component

import React from 'react'
import { FieldLabel } from '@payloadcms/ui'
import type { TextFieldLabelServerComponent } from 'payload'

export const CustomTextFieldLabelServer: TextFieldLabelServerComponent = ({
  clientField,
  path,
  required,
}) => {
  return (
    <FieldLabel
      label={clientField?.label || clientField?.name}
      path={path}
      required={clientField?.required}
    />
  )
}

Client Component

'use client'
import React from 'react'
import { FieldLabel } from '@payloadcms/ui'
import type { TextFieldLabelClientComponent } from 'payload'

export const CustomTextFieldLabelClient: TextFieldLabelClientComponent = ({
  field,
  path,
}) => {
  return (
    <FieldLabel
      label={field?.label || field?.name}
      path={path}
      required={field?.required}
    />
  )
}

Slug Field

The slug field is experimental and may change, or even be removed, in future releases. Use at your own risk.

One common use case for the Text Field is to create a "slug" for a document. A slug is a unique, indexed, URL-friendly string that identifies a particular document, often used to construct the URL of a webpage.

Payload provides a built-in Slug Field so you don't have to built one from scratch. This field automatically generates a slug based on the value of another field, such as a title or name field. It provides UI to lock and unlock the field to protect its value, as well as to re-generate the slug on-demand.

To add a Slug Field, import the slugField into your field schema:

import { slugField } from 'payload'
import type { CollectionConfig } from 'payload'

export const ExampleCollection: CollectionConfig = {
  // ...
  fields: [
    // ...
    // highlight-line
    slugField(),
    // highlight-line
  ],
}

The slug field exposes a few top-level config options for easy customization:

Option	Description
name	To be used as the slug field's name. Defaults to slug.
overrides	A function that receives the default fields so you can override on a granular level. See example below. More details.
checkboxName	To be used as the name for the generateSlug checkbox field. Defaults to generateSlug.
disableUnique	Disables the unique index on the field. Useful when you want to add a compound unique index to the collection indexes config instead, for example with the multi-tenant plugin where the slug is only unique per tenant, not globally
useAsSlug	The name of the top-level field to use when generating the slug. This field must exist in the same collection. Defaults to title.
localized	Enable localization on the slug and generateSlug fields. Defaults to false.
position	The position of the slug field. More details.
required	Require the slug field. Defaults to true.
slugify	Override the default slugify function. More details.

Slug Overrides

If the above options aren't sufficient for your use case, you can use the overrides function to customize the slug field at a granular level. The overrides function receives the default fields that make up the slug field, and you can modify them to any extent you need.

import { slugField } from 'payload'
import type { CollectionConfig } from 'payload'

export const ExampleCollection: CollectionConfig = {
  // ...
  fields: [
    // ...
    // highlight-line
    slugField({
      overrides: (defaultField) => {
        defaultField.fields[1].label = 'Custom Slug Label'
        return defaultField
      },
    }),
    // highlight-line
  ],
}

Custom Slugify Function

You can also override the default slugify function of the slug field. This is necessary if the slug requires special treatment, such as character encoding, additional language support, etc.

This functions receives the value of the useAsSlug field as valueToSlugify and must return a string.

For example, if you wanted to use the slugify package, you could do something like this:

import type { CollectionConfig } from 'payload'
import { slugField } from 'payload'
import slugify from 'slugify'

export const MyCollection: CollectionConfig = {
  // ...
  fields: [
    // ...
    slugField({
      slugify: ({ valueToSlugify }) =>
        slugify(valueToSlugify, {
          // ...additional `slugify` options here
        }),
    }),
  ],
}

The following args are provided to the custom slugify function:

Argument	Type	Description
valueToSlugify	string	The value of the field specified in useAsSlug.
data	object	The full document data being saved.
req	PayloadRequest	The Payload request object.