CKEDITOR 4.1: How to make input element to be totally ignored by the editor?

One thing that we do to make the editor ignore some special markup that we add is use special character encoding and/or place-holder text which is replaced later at the time the document is saved. For example if we want to add something special which is not valid HTML like: <<MARKER>>

Then we encode it like this &lt;&lt;MARKER&gt;&gt; The editor then shows it the way we want to see it and doesn't make any modifications to it.

Or, for example, with spell checking we want to hide images in the document while it is being checked so that they don't distract the user who is trying to check spelling rather than view a bunch of images. To do that we replace each <img> tag with some placeholder image during spell check and then replace the original images when spell checking is complete. In your case you might put a place holder image in that looks like an input field but is really just a picture and then when the document is saved, use regular expressions to replace all the place holders with real form fields.

look up CKEDITOR.config.protectedSource to see if that will help you.