Fill in a PDF form

The fields come from your document

Every other tool here has a fixed set of controls. This one cannot: its controls are whatever fields your form turns out to have. They are read out of the file when you open it, with their names, their types, their existing values and the options in each dropdown.

Filling locks the answers in

The exported file is not a fillable form any more — the answers are drawn into the page, so they print correctly everywhere and the person receiving it cannot change what you wrote. That is almost always what you want when returning a completed form, and it is worth knowing before you close the tab: keep the blank original if you will need to fill it in again.

Fields the author locked stay locked

A reference number or a pre-filled date is often marked read-only by whoever made the form. Those are shown but not editable here, because writing to them would produce a document whose locked fields had quietly changed — and the person checking it has no way to tell.

The value you see is the value that prints

There is a way to fill a form that sets the data correctly and leaves the printed appearance showing the old value. The file passes every automated check and misleads every human who opens it. This writes the appearance too, and the tests for it read the exported page's text rather than its field data — because that is what a person actually sees.

Many "forms" have no fields at all

A large share of PDFs that look like forms are just printed lines with nothing behind them — usually a scan. There is nothing to fill in, and the panel says so rather than showing you an empty list. For those, use the signature tool or a watermark to place text directly onto the page.

Questions

Can I save a partly-filled form and come back to it?

Not as a fillable form — exporting flattens it. For now, keep the browser tab open, or export a locked copy and fill the original again later.

What happens to the form if I use another tool as well?

Any document with a form is flattened when it exports, whichever tool you used. That is deliberate: rebuilding a document drops the form structure, so flattening is what keeps the answers that were already in it from vanishing.

Are digital signature fields supported?

No. A signature field is listed but cannot be filled here — a real cryptographic signature needs a certificate and a trusted timestamp, both of which require a network. Verify signatures will tell you about signatures that are already there.

Is my data sent anywhere?

No. The form is read and written by your own browser. You can disconnect from the network before you start and everything still works.