How to Make a Fillable PDF Form Without Acrobat with Ease in 2021?
Make a fillable pdf form? That is an easy task in Adobe Acrobat. If your work requires the multiple functionalities of this adobe product, there is no loss in subscribing to the application. Mind you, Adobe subscription is not cheap.
But if you only have to just make a fillable pdf, there is no use in splurging so much money on subscribing to Adobe Acrobat.
Here we’re going to give you a simple, safe, and free method to make fillable pdfs.
2: LibreOffice
3: Online
MS Office Word to Make a Fillable PDF Form
Everyone will have Microsoft Word on their computers unless you are using Linux operating systems.
1) Open MS Word and create the document you’d like to convert into a fillable PDF.
2) If you’ve already written the document, then open it.
3) The tab which opens the Form settings is not enabled by default. To enable it, hover over the space between the menu bars and right-click.
4) Select Customize Ribbon. It’ll open the customize screen. Here, it’ll show what enabled tabs you see in the menu bar. In the main tabs section, enable the Developer option and accept the changes.
5) Now, you can see the Developer tab on the menu bar. When you select it, it’ll open the sub-menu. The form options are in the Controls column – Rich text content control and Plain text content control.
6) Before selecting the options, make sure your cursor is placed in the spot where you want your fillable form. Now select Plain text content control.
7) If you’d like to customize the form, you can do it by selecting Properties. There are options to include Checkboxes, lists, dropdowns, date pickers, pictures, etc.
8) If you’d like to protect the document so no one can edit the basic layout, you can do that in the Restrict Editing section.
9) You can export the document to the PDF format and share it with others to use.
Libreoffice to Make a Fillable PDF
If you haven’t heard of this product before, let us draw an introduction. It is an open-source free alternative to Microsoft Office. It comes bundled with a total of six software to replace MS Office.
Compared to Microsoft, LibreOffice lacks the polishing and finesse, but it does the job so well done. If you’re looking for a free alternative suite to replace Office, Libreoffice will satisfy your needs.
If you don’t have LibreOffice on your computer, go to libreoffice.org and download the software. It is only ~300MB. So don’t worry about your data or storage space.
Steps to make a fillable pdf form without acrobat in LibreOffice Writer:
1) Open LibreOffice writer and type how you’d like your form to look like.
2) Adjust the fonts, font size, orientations, spacing, etc. You’ll find shortcuts for all these functions in the Home tab itself.
3) To add a fillable form, go to Form in the menu bar, and you’ll see multiple options there.
4) You can insert textbox, check box, list box, and such. When you select the one you need, your cursor will change into a Plus sign indicating that the form is enabled.
5) Drop where you want to place the form by drawing a boundary. It’ll create a fillable form.
6) Repeat the procedure for all the fillable columns you need.
7) To save it in pdf format, go to File and Export as PDF. It’ll open the PDF options. If you’ve to customize anything, you can do it here.
8) Click Export.
It’ll save the file in PDF format. Those who want to fill the PDF can open it in their browser, fill the form and save it.
Caution
There are few disadvantages to using LibreOffice. You cannot choose which software you want to install and which you don’t want to. The installer will install all the six software. You cannot uninstall any one or two. You’ve to keep all six of them to use even anyone.
Since it doesn’t take much storage space, it won’t affect you in any way, and you may need other software such as LibreOffice Calc to replace MS Excel or LibreOffice Impress to replace MS Powerpoint. Hence, please keep an open mind about it.
They don’t have the web versions which Microsoft and Google offer. Also, there’d be few compatibility issues if you’re not careful about how you save your document. Otherwise, it is a great platform that fulfills its customers well.
Online Methods
You can try to make a fillable PDF online too. But they are not considered safe, and compared to the above two methods; they are complicated. The same can be accomplished through Google docs. Everyone’s computer will have any of the two software. Without the pain of switching multiple tabs, you can use the default app to fulfill your needs.
