How to fill in a PDF form for free

You can fill in a PDF form for free with PDF by Zaweba, which is free software for Windows. Open the form, click in a field and type, press Tab to move to the next field, and save when you're done. Check boxes, radio buttons, drop-down lists and date fields all work as they should, and it all happens offline with no account.

Forms turn up everywhere: job applications, council forms, school trips, insurance claims and tax paperwork. Printing them, writing on them and scanning them back is slow and looks it. Filling them on screen is quicker and neater.

Finding the fields

When a form opens, its fields are tinted so they stand out from the rest of the page. Any required field that's still empty is outlined in red, which makes it hard to miss one. If the tint gets in your way when reading the form, Form > Highlight fields turns it off.

The Form fields panel lists every field once, with its page, kind and value, and whether it's required or read-only. It has a filter for required fields that are still empty, which is a good last check before you send the form. Click a row to go to that field.

Filling it in

Click a text field and type. Tick check boxes by clicking them, choose a radio button from a group, and open drop-downs and lists to pick an answer. Date fields show a calendar, and entries you've made before are offered again, which helps with forms you fill in often.

Tab moves to the next field, and Shift+Tab goes back. Working through a form with Tab is often faster than clicking, and you're less likely to skip a field.

Many forms check and work things out as you go. PDF by Zaweba carries out number, currency, percentage, date and time formats, ranges, and calculations, so totals add up and amounts are shown properly. Other scripts in a form are not run.

Saving and sending

Save the form when you've finished. If you'll need a blank copy again, use Save as for your filled-in version and keep the original empty.

Made a mess of it? Form > Reset form puts back the form's own starting values, and Clear form empties everything that can be changed.

To stop the answers being changed after you send it, the form can be flattened, which draws the fields into the page as ordinary content. Some forms ask for a signature, and PDF by Zaweba can add one, typed, drawn or from a picture, or sign with a digital ID.

When it isn't really a form

Some PDFs look like forms but have no fields at all. They're just pages with lines and boxes printed on them, and clicking does nothing. For those, Form > Fill and sign lets you type text, add today's date, and put ticks and crosses anywhere on the page.

And if you fill in the same details on lots of forms, PDF by Zaweba can export the field values to a file and import them into another copy of the form in one go.

PDF by Zaweba never needs an account and keeps the form and your answers on your own computer.