HTML:

<tmpl_if errorlist>
   <p>Thanks for your inquiry, but there were error(s):</p>
   <tmpl_loop name="errorlist">
      <p class="error"><tmpl_var name="errormsg"></p>
   </tmpl_loop>
</tmpl_if>
   
<div class="frow">
   <span class="blabel"></span>
   <span class="frm"><i>(Bold fields are mandatory)</i></span>
</div>

<form action="cgi-bin/contact.pl" method="post">
<div class="frow">
   <span class="label">Send To:</span>
   <span class="frm">
      <select name="sendto">
         <option value="1">General</option>
         <option value="2">Brad</option>
         <option value="3">Kathy</option>
         <option value="4">Lauren</option>
      </select>
   </span>
</div>
<div class="frow">
   <span class="blabel">First Name:</span>
   <span class="frm"><input type="text" name="first" size="35" maxlength="20" value="<tmpl_var name='first'>" />
   </span>
</div>
<div class="frow">
   <span class="label">Last Name:</span>
   <span class="frm"><input type="text" name="last" size="35" maxlength="30" value="<tmpl_var name='last'>" />
   </span>
</div>
<div class="frow">
   <span class="label">Company:</span>
   <span class="frm"><input type="text" name="company" size="35" maxlength="30" value="<tmpl_var name='company'>" />
   </span>
</div>
<div class="frow">
   <span class="label">Announcements:</span>
   <span class="frm"><input type="checkbox" name="notify_ok" value="1" /> 
   </span>
</div>

CSS:

div.frow {
  clear: both;
  padding-top: 9px;
}

div.frow span.label {
  float: left;
  width: 80px;
  text-align: right;
  font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
  font-size: 11px;
  padding-top: 3px;
}

div.frow span.blabel {
  float: left;
  width: 80px;
  text-align: right;
  font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
  font-size: 11px;
  font-weight: bold;
  padding-top: 3px;
}

div.frow span.frm {
  float: right;
  width: 500px;
  text-align: left;
  font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
  font-size: 11px;
} 


PERL:
#first, validates input with validate module
my ($error, @errors, @errorlist);
my $sendto = $query->param('sendto'); 
my $fifvalues = { sendto => $sendto }; #use HTML::FillInForm for selects and checkboxes 
(my $first, $error)= Validate->limitedtext ($query->param('first'),20,1);
   if ( $error-> { msg } ) { push @errors, "<b>First name</b> $error->{ msg }" }
(my $last, $error)   = Validate->limitedtext ($query->param('last'),30,0);
   if ( $error-> { msg } ) { push @errors, "<b>Last name</b> $error->{ msg }" }
(my $company, $error)    = Validate->limitedtext ($query->param('company'),60,0);
   if ( $error-> { msg } ) { push @errors, "<b>Company</b> $error->{ msg }" }
my $notify_ok = $query->param('notify_ok');
$fifvalues = { notify_ok => $notify_ok }; 

#handle errors and return form if necessary
if (@errors) { 
   foreach (@errors) {
      my %one_record = ( 
         errormsg => $_,
         );
      push (@errorlist, \%one_record);
   }
   
   $template = HTML::Template->new(
      filename => '/usr/www/users/somename/contact.tmpl',
      associate => $query,
      die_on_bad_params => 1);

   $template->param(errorlist => \@errorlist);

   print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; 
   my $html = $template->output(); 
   if ($fifvalues) {       
      my $form = new HTML::FillInForm;
      my $page = $form->fill(scalarref => \$html,
                             fdat      => $fifvalues); 
      print $page;
   } else {
      print $html;
   }
   exit();
}

VALIDATE:

sub limitedtext {
   my ($class, $value, $len, $mand) = @_;
   if (!$value && $mand) {
      return (undef, { msg => 'cannot be blank' });
   } elsif ($len && (length($value) > $len) ) {
      return (undef, { msg => 'is limited to '.$len.' characters.' });
   } elsif ($value && $value !~ /^([.,-]*\w[\w .,-]*)$/) {
      return (undef, { msg => 'can only use letters, numbers, spaces and - . ,' });
   } else {
      return "$1";
   }
}