How to fill in a PDF that has no form fields

Flat PDFs with no form fields can still be filled in. In PDF by Zaweba, choose Form > Fill and sign, and you can click anywhere on the page to type, add today's date, and put ticks, crosses, dots and lines in the boxes. It works on any PDF, including scanned forms, offline and with no account.

Plenty of forms are like this. Someone took a paper form, scanned it or saved it as a PDF, and sent it round. It has lines for your name and boxes to tick, but they're only printed on the page. Clicking them does nothing, because there's nothing there to click.

Adding your answers

Choose Form > Fill and sign. Pick Add text, click at the start of a line on the form and type. Each piece of text is placed where you click, so put your name on the name line, your address in the address box, and so on.

Today's date drops in the date with one click, which saves typing it on every form.

For tick boxes, choose Tick, Cross or Dot and click in each box. These mark tools stay in hand after each click, so you can work down a column of boxes ticking as you go, without picking the tool again each time. Line is there for striking through options that don't apply or underlining something.

Lining things up neatly

The thing that makes a filled flat form look tidy is placement. Zoom in so the lines and boxes are big enough to click accurately. Start text just above the printed line rather than on it. Keep your answers in the same size throughout.

Until the items are flattened, each one stays a separate item on the page rather than part of it, so check them over before you save.

Saving and flattening

When you save, the filled-in items are flattened into the page by default. That's a setting, so it can be changed. Flattening draws your text and marks into the page itself, so they can't be moved or edited by accident. Flattened text is real text, so it can still be searched and copied.

If you'd like to keep the items editable for now, perhaps because you're filling the form in stages, change the setting and flatten later.

Signing a flat form

Most flat forms end with a signature line. PDF by Zaweba asks for your signature the first time: type it in a handwriting font, draw it with a mouse or pen, or choose a picture of it. After that, it's ready to place on any form. Initials work the same way, for forms that ask you to initial each page.

Turning it into a real form

If this is a form you send out, not one you fill in, consider making it a proper form so others don't have to do it this way. Form > Prepare form adds text fields, check boxes, drop-downs and more. There's also a command that finds fields automatically on a paper-style form: lines of underscores, empty boxes and small squares become fields, named from the words beside them.

PDF by Zaweba is free software for Windows, and your forms and answers stay on your own PC.