How to Fill Out a PDF Form Without Printing It

Job applications, school registrations, tax forms, rental applications: many still arrive as PDFs. Printing them, writing by hand and scanning them back is slow and the result is often hard to read. If the form has fillable fields, you can complete it on screen in a few minutes.

Step by step

1. Open the tool. Go to pdfmerger.io/fill-pdf-forms.
2. Add your form. Its fields light up on the page.
3. Fill it in. Click a field and type, tick checkboxes, choose radio options and pick from drop-down lists.
4. Decide whether to flatten. Tick Flatten to lock your answers into the page (see below).
5. Click "Save filled PDF". The completed form downloads.

Save editable or flatten?

• Leave it editable if you or someone else may need to change an answer later. The fields stay in the file with your answers in them.
• Flatten when you are sending the final version. Your answers become regular page content and the fields are removed, so nobody can change them.

Some organizations process forms automatically and need the fields intact. If the instructions say to return the form "as a fillable PDF", don't flatten.

What if the PDF has no fields?

If the form is a scan, or was never made fillable, nothing will light up. Open it in Edit PDF instead: type text anywhere on the page, draw a small box or an X to tick boxes, and add your signature as an image. To sign, you can also use Sign PDF.

Government and XFA forms

Most government forms are standard fillable PDFs and work normally. A few are built with Adobe XFA. Those are filled through their standard version, so open the result in your PDF reader and check it before you send it.

Typing in other languages

You can type in any language. Answers in Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and other scripts are stored in the fields and drawn by the reader. Flattening needs Latin text, so leave the form editable for other scripts.