New tool
Make any PDF a fillable form
A form that only exists on paper has to be printed, filled in by hand and scanned back. The free PDF editor can now turn it into a form people fill in on screen. Like the rest of the editor, it is free, needs no account, adds no watermark and never uploads your file.
New
Form fields
Pick the Form fields tool (or press F) and click or drag on the page. There are single and multi-line text fields, checkboxes, radio buttons where only one in a group can be picked, dropdowns, list boxes, dates, numbers and signature fields. Fields move, resize, copy (Ctrl+D) and undo like any other mark.
Find fields
Press Find fields and the editor looks at each page for empty boxes and table cells, lines with room above them, and small squares. It adds a field for each one and names it after the text next to it, like “Full name”. A label with “date” or “signature” in it gets a date or signature field, and a label ending in * makes the field required. On our test form it found all 15 fields on the first page. It can still miss one or add one you do not want, so look the page over before you save.
A panel for every field
Click a field to set its name, the tooltip people see, whether it is required or read-only, the text size and alignment, a default value, the choices of a dropdown, a maximum length, one box per character (for account numbers), and the date or number format.
Standard PDF forms
Save PDF writes real PDF form fields, so the file can be filled in with Adobe Acrobat Reader, a web browser or ScanKit itself. Date and number fields carry the usual form scripts that format and check what is typed, in readers that run them. Fields are saved in reading order, so Tab moves through them row by row, and each tooltip is read out by screen readers.
Good to know
- A signature field is an empty place for a digital signature, signed in a reader like Acrobat Reader. To put your own drawn or typed signature on your own document, use the Sign tool.
- Find fields works best on PDFs with clear lines and boxes. It does not find labels on pages whose text runs sideways, and it skips lined writing areas that run the full width of the page; add those by hand.
- Fields that a PDF already has can be filled in, but not changed yet. Find fields does not add new fields on top of them.
- So far we have checked the saved forms with pdf.js, the PDF engine inside Firefox, and not yet in Acrobat or Apple Preview. If a reader shows one wrongly, please tell us.
Something missing, or a form that does not behave? Write to [email protected].