Fill in a PDF form

How it works

1. Choose the PDF. Its fields are read out of the document and listed, with whatever is already in them.
2. Fill them in. A tick box is a tick box, and a field with a fixed list of answers offers that list.
3. Decide about flattening. Leave it on for a form you are filing or sending back; turn it off if somebody else still has to add to it.
4. Save. You get a new PDF and the original is untouched.

Frequently asked questions

How is this different from “fill and sign a PDF”?

That one writes new text on top of the page, the way you would write on a printout — which is the only thing you can do with a form that is really just a picture of one. This one fills the fields the PDF itself declares: the boxes know where they are and what they are called, so the answers land in them. If you open a form here and it says there are no fields, that form is a picture, and the other tool is the one for it.

What does flattening do, and should I leave it on?

Flattening draws the answers into the page and removes the fields. Leave it on for something you are filing or sending back: every viewer then shows the same thing and nobody can quietly change an answer. Turn it off when the form is going on to somebody else who still has to fill in their part, because flattening would take their boxes away too.

Why are the field names so odd?

They are the names the form's author gave them — often something like applicant.name or Kontrollkästchen1. They are shown exactly as they are rather than tidied up, because on an official form that string is frequently the only thing tying a box to the guidance that came with it. Tidying it would be a guess.

It will not take one of my answers.

A field with a fixed list only accepts something on that list, so an answer that is not one of its options is left alone rather than written in. That is deliberate: a form holding a choice it never offered looks answered and means nothing. Everything else you filled in is still saved.

Can it fill in many copies at once, from a list?

That is PDF mail merge: the same form, one copy per row of a spreadsheet, with the column headings matched to the field names. This page is the single copy — one person, one form.

Is the PDF uploaded?

No. It is read, filled and saved in this browser. The forms people fill in are tax returns, visa applications and school paperwork, which is exactly the sort of document that should not be handed to a stranger's server to have text put into it.