Turning a paper-style PDF into a form automatically

Lots of older forms were designed to be printed and filled with a pen. They have lines of underscores for names, empty boxes for addresses and small squares to tick. Adding a field over every one of those by hand is slow. The automatic field finder in PDF by Zaweba does the first pass for you.

It looks over a paper-style form for three things: lines of underscores, empty drawn boxes and small squares. For each one it makes a field, and it names the field from the words beside it. A line next to "Surname" becomes a field called Surname, which is exactly what you would have typed yourself.

Why the naming matters

Field names are more than labels. They are what you see in the form fields panel, and they are what appears in exported data and in spreadsheets made by merging data files. A form full of fields called Text1, Text2 and Text3 works on screen but is miserable to deal with afterwards. Because the finder names fields from nearby words, the form you end up with is far easier to manage from the start.

Running it well

Open the form and run the finder from the form tools. Then look carefully at what it made, page by page. Most of the work is usually done, but it is worth checking three things.

First, the kind of field. Small squares become fields suited to ticking, and lines and boxes become text fields. If a question really wants a date or a fixed set of choices, change the field to a date field or a drop-down in Prepare form.

Second, the size. A line of underscores tells the finder where to put a field, but a long box for an address may want to be taller so several lines fit.

Third, the names. If two lines both sit next to the word "Name", for instance one for a first name and one for a surname on separate rows, give them names that tell them apart.

What it needs to work

The finder reads the drawing on the page, so it works best on forms whose lines and boxes are real lines and boxes in the PDF. A scan is a picture of a page, so its lines are pixels rather than drawn shapes. If your form is a scan, results will be limited, and you may need to add fields by hand in Prepare form.

It also helps if the labels are real text. Names come from the words beside each line or box, so a form with clear printed labels gives clear field names.

Finishing the form

After the finder has done its pass, move into Prepare form to tidy up. Line up fields that sit in a column, set the tab order so Tab moves through the form in reading order, and add any formats or calculations, such as totals at the bottom of an order form. Add a signature field if the form needs signing.

Then test it. Leave Prepare form, fill the form in, press Tab through it, and use the form fields panel to check nothing was missed. Clear form gets rid of your test answers before you share it.

When to do it by hand instead

On a short form with five or six boxes, the finder still saves a little time, but you may find it just as quick to drag the fields out yourself. On a long form with dozens of lines and tick boxes spread over several pages, it saves a great deal. Either way the result is a real fillable form you can share, made offline in PDF by Zaweba without uploading your document anywhere.