# Fill PDF form

Fill in a PDF form and save it, with the option to flatten so the values cannot be changed. Free, no signup, and the form is never uploaded.

Canonical page: https://filetity.com/fill-pdf-form

## Capabilities

- Free: Yes, with no watermark and no page limit.
- Account required: No. There is no account system.
- Processed on device: Yes. The file is read by your browser and never uploaded. There is no server to send it to.
- Formats: PDF with AcroForm fields in, PDF out. Text boxes, checkboxes, dropdowns, radio groups and multi-selects.
- Limits: Only fillable PDFs. A scanned form is a picture and has no fields to fill. XFA forms, an older Adobe format, are refused rather than half-filled.
- Mobile: Yes, on any modern mobile browser. Large files are limited by the memory the phone gives the browser.
- Offline: Yes, after you have used it once. Your browser keeps what the tool needs, so it then works with no network connection.

## Questions

### Nothing appeared when I dropped my form in. Why?

Because that PDF has no form fields in it. Most 'forms' people are sent are printed, filled by hand, scanned, and saved as a PDF, which makes them a picture of a form. There is nothing to type into. Print it, or add fields to it in a PDF editor first.

### What does flattening do, and should I?

It paints your answers into the page and removes the fields, so the values become part of the document and nobody can alter them. Do it when you are sending the form back and it is final. Do not do it if you might need to correct something, because it cannot be undone. Keep the original either way.

### Why are some fields greyed out?

Those are marked read-only by whoever made the form, usually a reference number or a pre-filled name. filetity leaves them exactly as they are rather than writing over them, because a form that arrives with an altered reference tends to get rejected.

### Is my filled form uploaded anywhere?

No. It is read by your browser, changed in memory and written back on your machine. A completed form usually carries a name, an address, a date of birth or an account number, so this is the last kind of file that should be sent to a stranger's server to be processed.

### Why do my answers look blank in some readers?

That happens when a filler stores the value but does not rebuild the appearance stream that draws it. filetity rebuilds appearances on every save, so the text shows up in Preview, Acrobat and browser viewers alike.

## Related tools

- [Flatten PDF](https://filetity.com/flatten-pdf): Make a PDF uneditable: form values, annotations and layers all fixed in place.
- [Sign PDF](https://filetity.com/sign-pdf): Add your signature to a PDF, without uploading the document.
- [Unlock PDF and password protect PDF](https://filetity.com/protect-pdf): Remove PDF password protection when you know the password, or add AES-256 encryption.