Make a PDF fillable
Drop a form that was made to be printed. The blanks, boxes and tick boxes are found for you and turned into real fields anyone can type into, all on your device.
How to make a PDF form fillable
- 1
Open the flat form
Drop a PDF form that has blanks to write on but nothing you can type into.
- 2
Review the fields
Each field found is outlined on the page. Untick any you do not want, rename them, or switch between text, paragraph and checkbox.
- 3
Download the fillable PDF
The fields are added to the PDF on your device. Open it in any PDF reader and start typing.
Why make a form fillable in your browser?
Forms carry names, addresses and ID numbers. Detecting the fields locally means the form, and anything already written on it, never leaves your device.
Then fill it, sign it, send it
Once the form is fillable, you can fill it and autofill your details, sign it, and flatten it so the answers can no longer be changed.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from the PDF Forms tool?+
PDF Forms fills in a PDF that already has interactive fields. This tool is for the step before that: a PDF that only looks like a form, with blanks and boxes printed on it but nothing you can click. It creates the fields. Once it has, you can fill them here or in PDF Forms.
What does it detect?+
Runs of underscores or dots ("Name: ________"), free-standing lines for signatures and dates, empty rectangles (tall ones become multi-line paragraph fields), empty cells in tables drawn with lines, and tick boxes, whether drawn as small squares or typed as a box character. Table borders, underlined headings, page frames and header rules are recognised as structure and left alone.
How are the fields named?+
From the label a person would read: the text before a blank, to the left of a box, or the heading of a table row. "Date of birth: ______" becomes a field called Date_of_birth. You can rename any field before saving, and duplicate names get a number so every field stays separate.
Does it work on scanned forms?+
A scan is a picture with no text layer, so there are no labels to read and no lines to measure. Run it through OCR PDF first to add a text layer, then bring it back here. The tool tells you when a page looks scanned.
What if it misses a field or finds one I do not want?+
Untick anything you do not want before saving. For a field it missed, open the result in Edit PDF, which has a form builder for placing fields by hand.
What if my PDF already has some fields?+
They are kept exactly as they are, and no new field is placed on top of one.
Is my form uploaded?+
No. Reading the page and adding the fields both happen in your browser, so the form never leaves your device.
Is it free?+
Yes, with no sign-up and no watermark.
Common uses
Task-specific guides for the situations people reach for this tool for.