We have onboarding forms that take 20 minutes per new hire during orientation. Prefill standard fields where HR data e…
Open Adobe Acrobat Pro on your computer.
Select the Tools tab.
Find and select Prepare Form under Forms.
Choose an existing file to use as your form, or select the option to create a new one.
Best practiceIf your form is not already a PDF, convert it to PDF before starting this process.
Click Start to let Acrobat detect form fields automatically, or manually add fields as needed.
Best practiceLetting Acrobat auto-detect fields can save time, but always review and adjust the detected fields for accuracy.
Use the toolbar to add, move, or delete form fields such as text boxes, checkboxes, and drop-down lists.
Double-click any form field to edit its properties, such as name, tooltip, and appearance.
When finished, use File > Save to save your fillable PDF form.
You can quickly test your form by switching to Preview mode in the Prepare Form tool to see how users will fill it out.
This runs in the Acrobat app - there is no separate API for this task.
While you can start with a well-structured document from Word, Word's own form tools do not create accessible PDF fields. Adobe Acrobat's 'Prepare a form' tool is designed specifically to convert documents into proper fillable PDFs with accessible fields. This ensures that the form functions correctly, allows for features like tooltips, and is usable by a wider range of people, including those using assistive technologies.
Enabling saving rights for Adobe Reader users is crucial because, by default, people using the free Adobe Reader cannot save changes to a filled-out form. If you don't enable this, they will lose all their entered data when they close the document. This feature allows them to fill out your form, save it, and send it back to you with their information intact.
Yes, you can use 'Prepare a form' with a scanned image, but it might require more manual work. Acrobat will try to detect fields, but with a scanned image, it might not be as accurate as with a digital document. You will likely need to manually add all the text boxes, checkboxes, and other form fields yourself over the scanned image. Starting with a clear, high-quality scan will help, but be prepared to place fields by hand.
A form field is a specific interactive area within a PDF document where users can enter information. This could be a text box for typing names, a checkbox for 'yes/no' options, or a dropdown list. Form fields matter because they make it easy to collect structured data from users digitally, making the process faster and more organized than paper forms.