I have noticed that when Google populates the search results for this question there are actually two different questions being asked by a similar search.

The first asks:

How do I create a shortcode that outputs the value of an Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin field.

The second asks:

How can I dynamically populate a short code using the Advanced Custom Fields plugin.

I was trying to find the answer to the first question, but I will try to show both answers here, so that you do not have to search again.

How do I create a shortcode that outputs the value of an Advanced Custom Fields plugin field.

1. To do this you must first install and activate the ACF plugin on your WordPress website. You can download the free version here.
2. Create a field group with the information you want to use. You can learn more about how to do this on the ACF website.
3. Once you have your field set up you can start creating your shortcode. You are going to do this in the functions.php file of your child theme.
   • First create a function. Here is an example<

     function my_shortcode() { 
     
     	$myfield = get_field('my_field',false,false);
     	
     	return $myfield ;
     	
     }
     

     The trick here is to first create a variable using the get_field ACF function and then return that value as the output for the function./li>

   • Once that is done you need to register your function as a shortcode.

     add_shortcode( 'myshortcode', 'my_shortcode' );
     

   • Putting it all together you get

     function my_shortcode() { 
     
     	$myfield = get_field('my_field',false,false);
     	
     	return $myfield ;
     	
     }
     add_shortcode( 'myshortcode', 'my_shortcode' );
     

It is important to note that you only need to worry about this if you are using more advanced field than just a text field. If you are only using a text field you can use the inbuilt ACF shortcodes.

e.g.

[acf field="field_name" post_id="123"]

You can learn more about that here.

How can I dynamically populate a short code using the Advanced Custom Fields plugin.

Since I didn’t have to actually code this, I am taking it from an example I found on StackOverflow. You can read it here.

Say you have an ACF field ‘contact_form’ which is the ID of a contact form 7 form. You want to populate this ID dynamically using ACF.

Your normal short code that you would use in a template is

echo do_shortcode( '[contactform id="1457"]' );

To get this to work is as simple as

echo do_shortcode( '[contactform id="'.get_field('contact_form').'"]' );

The trick here is to use the ACF get_field() function instead of the ACF the_field() function.

Please note that the contact form 7 short code has been changed so that it is not called here, and you can see how we use it. Otherwise we get a 404 contact form shortcake showing.

I hope this helps.

If you have any questions please leave a comment below.