A tax form, a rental application, a school permission slip: they all arrive as PDFs, and many people assume they need Adobe Acrobat to complete them. You do not. Browsers and small tools can do the job, and you can keep the form on your own device the whole time. The first thing to find out is which kind of PDF form you have.
Fillable forms and flat forms
A fillable form, also called an AcroForm, contains real form fields: text boxes, checkboxes, radio buttons and drop-down lists. When you click one in a PDF viewer, it lets you type or choose. A flat form is only a picture of a form, or a page with lines and boxes that are just drawings. It has no fields, so there is nothing to click.
A quick test is to open the PDF in your browser and click on a box. If the box highlights and a cursor appears, the form is fillable. If nothing happens, it is flat.
Fill a fillable form
- Open Fill PDF form and choose the form.
- DocPro lists every field it finds, in order: text boxes (including multi-line ones), checkboxes, radio groups, drop-downs and option lists. Fields that were already filled show their current value.
- Fill in the fields you need. Empty fields stay empty.
- Decide whether to tick Flatten. Flattening turns the answers into normal page content, so the form can no longer be edited and looks the same in every viewer. Leave it off if the recipient must be able to change the answers or if you want to come back to it later.
- Press Fill and save PDF, then download the completed form.
Field names come from the form's author and are sometimes cryptic, such as Text1 or topmostSubform. If you are unsure which box is which, open the PDF next to the tool and match the order of the fields to the page. Text boxes with a maximum length stop accepting characters at that length, as the form's author intended.
Fill a flat form
If the form has no fields, Annotate PDF lets you place text on the page. Choose the Text tool, click where the answer should go, type, and press Enter. You can set the size and colour, move between pages, and then burn the text into the PDF. It also has a pen for drawing a tick, and a highlighter. Zoom in to line the text up with the lines of the form.
Fill-in-the-blanks on a scan or a photo of a form works the same way, because the page is just a picture to the tool.
Add a signature
Most forms also need a signature. Sign PDF places an image of your handwritten signature on the page. It is a DocPro Pro tool, and it adds an image of your signature, not a certificate-based digital signature. Check whether the organisation that sent the form accepts an image signature. Fill in the form first and sign last, because you do not want to change anything after you have signed.
Common problems
- The text does not appear after saving. Some viewers show form fields differently. Tick Flatten so the answers become part of the page, then check it in a second viewer.
- A character will not draw. Fillable fields use a standard font, which covers Western European letters. If a name contains other characters, a field may refuse it. Type those on the page with Annotate PDF instead.
- The form is protected. If the PDF asks for a password, DocPro asks for it on your device. If it only restricts editing, you may need to open it with Unlock PDF first. Only do this for files you are allowed to change.
- The form uses XFA. A few old government forms are built with a different technology, which is not a normal PDF form. They may show no fields. In that case, use Annotate PDF to type on the pages.
Send it safely
A completed form often holds your most sensitive details: address, date of birth, bank numbers. Many online form fillers upload the PDF to a server to fill it. DocPro opens and fills the file in your browser, so the form and your answers stay on your device. Before you email it, consider protecting it with a password, and if the file will be shared widely, remove the document information with Remove PDF metadata.
Keep a copy of the blank form. Once you flatten the answers, you cannot edit the fields, so a blank copy lets you start again if you make a mistake.
Frequently asked questions
Can I fill a form on my phone?
Yes. The tool runs in a phone browser. Typing on a flat form with Annotate PDF is easier with the phone turned sideways and the page zoomed in.
What does flatten do?
It turns filled fields into ordinary page content. The answers cannot be edited afterwards, and the form looks the same everywhere.