Fill and sign PDF forms Part 1

Fill and sign PDF forms Part 1

Overview

You can easily fill, sign, and share your documents using Acrobat's Fill & Sign tool. The topics below provide information about:


Types of PDF forms

  • Interactive forms: These contain fields that you can select and fill in. See how to Fill in interactive forms.
  • Flat forms: These do not have interactive fields. It could be a paper form or PDF that hasn’t been optimized for form filling. The Fill & Sign tool automatically detects the form fields like text fields, comb fields, checkboxes, and radio buttons. You can manually add text and other symbols anywhere on the form using the Fill & Sign tool if required.

You can complete the forms by entering information and adding your signatures. Acrobat also allows you to send your completed forms to others and securely save them in Adobe cloud storage.

Fill and sign PDF forms

To complete and sign PDF forms, open the form in Acrobat and then select E-Sign from the global bar. Alternatively, you can select All tools > Fill & Sign.

It displays the Fill & Sign tools in the left pane. You can now fill in the form fields and sign the form using the sign tools described in the following topics.

To fill text fields:

  1. 1. From the left panel, select Fill in form fields , and then select the field where you want to add text.
    It displays a text field along with a toolbar.

  2. 2. Select the text field again and enter your text.

  3. 3. To reposition the text box to align it with the text field, select the textbox and hover over it. Once you see a plus icon with arrows, move the textbox to the desired position.

  4. 4. To edit the text, select the text box. Once you see the cursor and keypad, edit the text and then click elsewhere to enter.

  5. 5. To change the text size, select A or A as required.

    fill-text-field

    Note

    Resize the first annotation you place to fit the check box or radio button in the document, and the next annotations you add will be of the same size and will fit the rest of the box/circle fields.

  6. 6. To change the text color, select the color from the quick toolbar and select a desired color from the color palette.

    The default color for signatures is black. To change the color of signatures, you must deselect the Keep signatures black checkbox. 

    text-color

  7. 7. To change the text style from normal to combed, from the textbox menu, select ellipsis ( )> Character spacing.

    Select Character Spacing for combed text.

    It changes the text style from normal to combed. To increase or decrease the spacing, you can select the blue arrow icon and then drag it as desired.

    Evenly spaced characters of text.

    Note: Combed Text is a text style where each letter of the text is equally spaced out with the help of a sequence of boxes. 

  8. 8. Once done, select the next field space and then enter your text in the text box. Use the formatting options as desired.

    Repeat the step to fill all the required fields in the form.

To fill radio option fields:

  1. 1. Hover over the field with the radio option.

    It automatically displays the default checkmark or the selected radio field symbol.

    fill-checkbox

  2. 2. Select the radio option field to enter the symbol.

  3. 3. To change the symbol, select the field again, and then from the menu, ellipsis ( ) and then select another symbol.

    It marks the field with the selected symbol.

    change-radio-symbol

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