How to fill out a PDF form online

Application forms, tax forms, registration forms — many arrive as PDFs. You don’t need to print them. How you fill one in depends on whether it’s a fillable form or a flat one.

Fillable or flat?

A fillable PDF has interactive fields: when you open it in a browser or PDF reader, you can click into boxes and type. A flat PDF is just a picture of a form — clicking does nothing. PDFfinch handles both.

Filling in a fillable form

1. Open Fill PDF form and select the form.
2. Every field is listed: type into text fields, tick checkboxes, choose from dropdowns.
3. Decide whether to flatten. Flattening turns your answers into ordinary page content so they can’t be changed — good for a final submission. Leave it off if someone else still has to fill in part of the form.
4. Click Save form and download.

Filling in a flat form

1. Open Add text and select the form.
2. Click next to each question and type your answer. Adjust the size so it fits the box.
3. To correct a pre-printed detail, turn on White background for that text box to cover what’s underneath.
4. Click Save PDF and download.

Signing and sending it back

If the form needs a signature, open the filled-in PDF in Sign PDF — you can go straight there from the result screen. If the finished file is large, Compress PDF before emailing it.

Some government and bank forms are “dynamic” (XFA) forms made for Adobe Reader. Fill PDF form converts them to a standard form when saving, which keeps your answers, but some automatic calculations may stop working.