Fill in a PDF form in four steps
- Open the PDF editor and choose your form. The editor tells you how many fillable fields it found; they are highlighted in blue.
- Click a field and type. Tick checkboxes and radio buttons, and pick options from drop-down lists. Press Tab to jump to the next field.
- If the form has no fields, use Text to type anywhere and Draw or Shapes to tick boxes. Add your signature with Sign.
- Click Download to save the completed form.
Fillable and non-fillable forms
A fillable PDF form (also called an interactive or AcroForm form) contains real fields. When you open one, the editor finds every field on every page and shows it as an input box over the page. A non-fillable form is just a picture of a form — a scan or a document exported without fields. You can still complete it: everything you add with the Text tool is placed exactly where you click.
Supported field types
| Field | How to fill it |
|---|---|
| Text field | Click and type. Multi-line fields wrap the text, and fields with a character limit stop at that limit. |
| Checkbox | Click to tick, click again to clear. |
| Radio buttons | Click one option; the others in the same group are cleared. |
| Drop-down list | Pick a value from the list. |
| Signature field | Click “Sign here”, create your signature and it is fitted into the field. |
Completing a scanned or non-fillable form
- Select Text and click at the start of the first blank line. Type your answer.
- Change the size in the bar above the page so the text fits the line. The size you choose is used for the next text you add, too.
- To tick a box, use Draw and make a check mark, or add a small rectangle with Shapes. You can also type a capital X with the Text tool.
- Select an answer and press Ctrl+D to duplicate it, then drag the copy to the next line — quicker than setting the style again.
- Line answers up: while you drag, pink guides appear when the text is aligned with the item above or below.
Correcting a form
Made a mistake in a printed form you received as a PDF? Use Edit text to retype a line of the original text, or Whiteout to cover a small area and type over it. For personal data that must not be readable in the file at all, use Redact instead.
Before you send it
- Scroll through every page: the thumbnails on the left show which pages you have filled in.
- Open the downloaded file in your usual PDF reader to check it. Some readers draw form fields slightly differently until you click into them.
- Keep the fields editable if the recipient needs to change them — that is how the editor saves them by default.