Jetpack Overrides Contact Forms

Jetpack is a popular plugin that allows you to utilize many features of WordPress.com on your self-hosted WordPress site. I like Jetpack and use it on my many sites.

Unfortunately, Jetpack’s contact form module, newly introduced with Jetpack 1.3, conflicts with other contact form plugins including Contact Form 7.

A typical problem is that Jetpack hijacks other plugin’s contact form shortcode. As a result of this, your customized contact form is replaced by Jetpack’s plain contact form, and the submitted message may be sent to an unintended destination.

I’ll post here how you can avoid Jetpack problems and use Contact Form 7 with Jetpack successfully.

Deactivating Jetpack’s contact form module

You can deactivate the contact form module and continue using other features of Jetpack. This is the simplest way to avoid problems if you intend to use Jetpack features other than the contact form.

You can deactivate specific features on Jetpack’s admin screen, but the procedure is confusing. See steps below.

  1. Open Jetpack menu
    Open Jetpack menu
  2. Click “Learn More” in the Contact Form pane
    Click Learn More
    Then, “Deactivate” button appears
  3. Click “Deactivate”
    Click Deactivate

Using new shortcode

Contact Form 7 uses [contact-form-7 ...] shortcode format by default, but used [contact-form ...] format before Contact Form 7 v3.0. The old shortcode [contact-form ...] is still supported for backward compatibility.

The problem using old shortcodes is that the name of the shortcode, “contact-form”, is a common word, so it’s possible that other plugins use the same name. Jetpack uses [contact-form ...]. When multiple plugins use shortcodes with the same name, it causes conflict.

You can minimize conflicts by manually replacing old shortcodes with new ones.

Just another contact form plugin for WordPress. Simple but flexible.