User Guide Cancel

Fill in PDF forms

  1. Acrobat User Guide
  2. Introduction to Acrobat
    1. Access Acrobat from desktop, mobile, web
    2. Introducing the new Acrobat experience
    3. What's new in Acrobat
    4. Keyboard shortcuts
    5. System Requirements
  3. Workspace
    1. Workspace basics
    2. Opening and viewing PDFs
      1. Opening PDFs
      2. Navigating PDF pages
      3. Viewing PDF preferences
      4. Adjusting PDF views
      5. Enable thumbnail preview of PDFs
      6. Display PDF in browser
    3. Working with online storage accounts
      1. Access files from Box
      2. Access files from Dropbox
      3. Access files from OneDrive
      4. Access files from SharePoint
      5. Access files from Google Drive
    4. Acrobat and macOS
    5. Acrobat notifications
    6. Grids, guides, and measurements in PDFs
    7. Asian, Cyrillic, and right-to-left text in PDFs
  4. Creating PDFs
    1. Overview of PDF creation
    2. Create PDFs with Acrobat
    3. Create PDFs with PDFMaker
    4. Using the Adobe PDF printer
    5. Converting web pages to PDF
    6. Creating PDFs with Acrobat Distiller
    7. Adobe PDF conversion settings
    8. PDF fonts
  5. Editing PDFs
    1. Edit text in PDFs
    2. Edit images or objects in a PDF
    3. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    4. Edit scanned PDFs
    5. Enhance document photos captured using a mobile camera
    6. Optimizing PDFs
    7. PDF properties and metadata
    8. Links and attachments in PDFs
    9. PDF layers
    10. Page thumbnails and bookmarks in PDFs
    11. PDFs converted to web pages
    12. Setting up PDFs for a presentation
    13. PDF articles
    14. Geospatial PDFs
    15. Applying actions and scripts to PDFs
    16. Change the default font for adding text
    17. Delete pages from a PDF
  6. Scan and OCR
    1. Scan documents to PDF
    2. Enhance document photos
    3. Troubleshoot scanner issues when scanning using Acrobat
  7. Forms
    1. PDF forms basics
    2. Create a form from scratch in Acrobat
    3. Create and distribute PDF forms
    4. Fill in PDF forms
    5. PDF form field properties
    6. Fill and sign PDF forms
    7. Setting action buttons in PDF forms
    8. Publishing interactive PDF web forms
    9. PDF form field basics
    10. PDF barcode form fields
    11. Collect and manage PDF form data
    12. About forms tracker
    13. PDF forms help
    14. Send PDF forms to recipients using email or an internal server
  8. Combining files
    1. Combine or merge files into single PDF
    2. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    3. Add headers, footers, and Bates numbering to PDFs
    4. Crop PDF pages
    5. Add watermarks to PDFs
    6. Add backgrounds to PDFs
    7. Working with component files in a PDF Portfolio
    8. Publish and share PDF Portfolios
    9. Overview of PDF Portfolios
    10. Create and customize PDF Portfolios
  9. Sharing, reviews, and commenting
    1. Share and track PDFs online
    2. Mark up text with edits
    3. Preparing for a PDF review
    4. Starting a PDF review
    5. Hosting shared reviews on SharePoint or Office 365 sites
    6. Participating in a PDF review
    7. Add comments to PDFs
    8. Adding a stamp to a PDF
    9. Approval workflows
    10. Managing comments | view, reply, print
    11. Importing and exporting comments
    12. Tracking and managing PDF reviews
  10. Saving and exporting PDFs
    1. Saving PDFs
    2. Convert PDF to Word
    3. Convert PDF to PPTX
    4. Convert PDF to XLSX or XML
    5. Convert PDF to JPG
    6. Convert PDF to PNG
    7. Convert or export PDFs to other file formats
    8. File format options for PDF export
    9. Reusing PDF content
  11. Security
    1. Enhanced security setting for PDFs
    2. Securing PDFs with passwords
    3. Manage Digital IDs
    4. Securing PDFs with certificates
    5. Opening secured PDFs
    6. Removing sensitive content from PDFs
    7. Setting up security policies for PDFs
    8. Choosing a security method for PDFs
    9. Security warnings when a PDF opens
    10. Securing PDFs with Adobe Experience Manager
    11. Protected View feature for PDFs
    12. Overview of security in Acrobat and PDFs
    13. JavaScripts in PDFs as a security risk
    14. Attachments as security risks
    15. Allow or block links in PDFs
  12. Electronic signatures
    1. Sign PDF documents
    2. Capture your signature on mobile and use it everywhere
    3. Send documents for e-signatures
    4. Create a web form
    5. Request e-signatures in bulk
    6. Collect online payments
    7. Brand your account
    8. About certificate signatures
    9. Certificate-based signatures
    10. Validating digital signatures
    11. Adobe Approved Trust List
    12. Manage trusted identities
  13. Printing
    1. Basic PDF printing tasks
    2. Print Booklets and PDF Portfolios
    3. Advanced PDF print settings
    4. Print to PDF
    5. Printing color PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    6. Printing PDFs in custom sizes
  14. Accessibility, tags, and reflow
    1. Create and verify PDF accessibility
    2. Accessibility features in PDFs
    3. Reading Order tool for PDFs
    4. Reading PDFs with reflow and accessibility features
    5. Edit document structure with the Content and Tags panels
    6. Creating accessible PDFs
    7. Cloud-based auto-tagging
  15. Searching and indexing
    1. Creating PDF indexes
    2. Searching PDFs
  16. Multimedia and 3D models
    1. Add audio, video, and interactive objects to PDFs
    2. Adding 3D models to PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    3. Displaying 3D models in PDFs
    4. Interacting with 3D models
    5. Measuring 3D objects in PDFs
    6. Setting 3D views in PDFs
    7. Enable 3D content in PDF
    8. Adding multimedia to PDFs
    9. Commenting on 3D designs in PDFs
    10. Playing video, audio, and multimedia formats in PDFs
    11. Add comments to videos
  17. Print production tools (Acrobat Pro)
    1. Print production tools overview
    2. Printer marks and hairlines
    3. Previewing output
    4. Transparency flattening
    5. Color conversion and ink management
    6. Trapping color
  18. Preflight (Acrobat Pro)
    1. PDF/X-, PDF/A-, and PDF/E-compliant files
    2. Preflight profiles
    3. Advanced preflight inspections
    4. Preflight reports
    5. Viewing preflight results, objects, and resources
    6. Output intents in PDFs
    7. Correcting problem areas with the Preflight tool
    8. Automating document analysis with droplets or preflight actions
    9. Analyzing documents with the Preflight tool
    10. Additional checks in the Preflight tool
    11. Preflight libraries
    12. Preflight variables
  19. Color management
    1. Keeping colors consistent
    2. Color settings
    3. Color-managing documents
    4. Working with color profiles
    5. Understanding color management

This document explains how to fill PDF forms using Acrobat or Acrobat Reader desktop application.

Before you begin

We're rolling out a new, more intuitive product experience. If the screen shown here doesn’t match your product interface, select help for your current experience.

In the new experience, the tools appear on the left side of the screen.

Is the form fillable?

Not all forms are fillable. Sometimes form creators don’t convert their PDFs to interactive fillable forms. Or, they intentionally design a form that you can fill in only by hand or with the Fill & Sign tool. These non-interactive forms are called flat forms.

Interactive forms in Acrobat Reader
Interactive fillable form in Acrobat Reader: Highlight where you should type

Flat form in Acrobat Reader
Non-interactive flat form in Acrobat Reader: Use the Fill & Sign tools to add text and other symbols anywhere on the form

Fill in interactive forms

An interactive form contains fields that you can select or fill in.

Interactive form in Acrobat
Interactive fillable form

A. Purple message bar indicates presence of fillable fields. B. When clicked, shows where fillable fields exist. 

  1. If necessary, select either the Hand Tool or the Select Tool from the context menu of the page (right-click on the page to open the context menu).

    The pointer changes to a different icon as you move it over a field. For example, the Hand  tool changes to an I-beam  when you can type text into the form field. Some text fields are dynamic, meaning that they automatically resize to accommodate the amount of data you enter and can span across pages.

  2. Select anywhere in the form to access options, such as radio buttons. Select inside a text field to type.

    Press Tab to move forward or Shift+Tab to move backward.

  3. When finished, submit the form to either send the data to a server or create an email to send the data.

For troubleshooting tips on completing forms, see Troubleshooting forms.

Fill in flat forms with the Fill & Sign tools

A flat form doesn’t have interactive fields. However, you can use the Fill & Sign tools to add text and other symbols anywhere on the form. For instructions, see Fill out your PDF form.

Fill in flat forms in a browser

A common way to view a PDF form is in a web browser, for example, when you follow a link on a website. If the form doesn’t contain interactive fields, you can use the Fill & Sign tools to fill out the form. Save the form on your computer, and then open it directly in Acrobat or Acrobat Reader. For instructions, see Fill out your PDF form.

Save form on your computer
Save form, open in Acrobat or Acrobat Reader, and then choose Tools > Fill & Sign.

Options for working in forms

Key

Result

Tab or Shift+Tab

Accepts typing and moves to next field

Up/Left Arrow

Selects previous radio button in a group

Down/Right Arrow

Selects next radio button

Esc

Reject and deselect form field.

Esc (press twice)

Exits the Full Screen mode

Enter or Return (single-line text field)

Accepts typing and deselects field

Enter or Return (multiline text field)

Creates paragraph return in same form field

Enter or Return (check box)

Turns check box on or off

Enter (keypad)

Accepts typing and deselects current form field

(Windows) Ctrl+Tab Inserts tab into text field
(macOS) command+Tab Inserts tab into text field

Auto-Complete forms (interactive forms only)

The Auto-Complete feature stores any entries that you type in an interactive form field. Auto-Complete then suggests or even automatically enters responses that match your typing in other form fields. The suggestions appear in a pop-up menu, from which you can select a match. The Auto-Complete feature is off by default, so you must enable it in the forms preferences if you want to use it.

To remove an entry from the Auto-Complete memory, such as a misspelled entry that you found and corrected later, edit the list in the preferences.

Note:

The forms preferences apply to the way that the application handles open forms as you work. The preferences aren’t saved with the PDF forms themselves.

Enable the Auto-Complete option

  1. From the hamburger menu, select Preferences (Windows®), or select Acrobat / Acrobat Reader > Preferences (macOS).

  2. In the Preferences dialog, select Forms as the preference category.

  3. Under Auto-Complete, choose Basic or Advanced from the menu.

  4. Select Remember Numerical Data if you want the Auto-Complete memory to store numbers that you type into forms.

Note:

When you select an option in the Auto-Complete menu, a description of how it affects the Auto-Complete behavior appears in the text area below.

Delete an entry from the Auto-Complete memory

  1. Open the Preferences dialog. From the hamburger menu, select Preferences (Windows®), or select AcrobatAcrobat Reader > Preferences (macOS).

  2. Select Forms on the left.

  3. Click Edit Entry List under Auto-Complete.

  4. In the Auto-Complete Entry List dialog box, do one of the following, and then select Yes to confirm:

    • To remove all entries, select Remove All.
    • To remove some of the entries, select the entries and click Remove. (Shift-select to select multiple adjacent entries; Ctrl-select to select multiple nonadjacent entries.)

Change flat forms to fillable (Acrobat Pro)

You can change a flat form to a fillable form by either using the Prepare Form tool or enabling the Fill & Sign tools. Acrobat and Acrobat Reader users can use the Fill & Sign tool to fill in flat forms.

Interactive form

To create an interactive form, use the Prepare Forms tool. See Create a form from an existing document.

Flat form

To enable the Fill & Sign tools, from the hamburger menu (File menu in macOS) choose Save As Other  > Acrobat Reader Extended PDF > Enable More Tools (includes Form Fill-in & Save).

The tools are enabled for the current form only. When you create a different form, redo this task to enable Acrobat Reader users to use the tools.

Save forms

  • To save the completed form, choose Save As from the hamburger menu (File > Save As in macOS) and rename the file.

  • To remove extended Acrobat Reader features, choose Save A Copy (File > Save A Copy in macOS).

  • To allow Acrobat Reader users to save the data they typed, choose one of the following depending upon your operating system:

    Windows®Save As Other > Acrobat Reader Extended PDF > Enable More Tools (Includes Form Fill-in & Save) 
    macOS: File > Save As Other > Acrobat Reader Extended PDF > Enable More Tools (Includes Form Fill-in & Save).

  1. Select Print this file  from the upper right.

  2. Choose an appropriate printer in the Print dialog box.

  3. In the Comments And Forms menu, choose one of the following, and then select OK:

    • (Interactive or flat form) To print the form and the typed entries, choose Document. This option prints text that you’ve typed using the Add Text tool.

    • (Interactive or flat form) To print the form, the typed entries, and any comments on the form, choose Document And Markups. This option prints text that you’ve typed using the Add Text tool.

    • (Interactive form only) To print only the typed entries and not the form itself, choose Form Fields Only.

Clear unsaved form entries

  1. Choose Tools > Prepare a form. In the Fields side panel, choose Clear Form from the Options menu  .

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