Create fillable PDF

You can populate fillable PDF forms using Plumsail Documents. There are at least two ways to do this:

• Create a process and start it using Power Automate (Microsoft Flow), Web form or REST API

• Or use rich REST API directly

You can use Adobe Acrobat Pro or any other PDF editor to work with your PDF file. This article describes how to create a fillable PDF using Acrobat Pro. Alternatively, please see this instruction to create a fillable PDF with Nitro Pro

Create new PDF file

First, we need to create a new blank PDF file. Click on Create PDF button in the menu and choose Blank page.

We need to add text which will indicate a field title on our form (click on Edit Pdf and then Add Text in the menu):

Create form fields

After that, we should add fields to our PDF file (Prepare Form button in the menu). We should specify the field’s name. Later you will want to automatically populate values to this form. That is why it is important to assign the correct field name. When populating the form you will submit some object with values. The field name has to match property names in this object.

For example, you have a field with the name “Text1”. In this case, you will need to submit an object with the structure like this to fill this field:

{
  "Text1": "Some value"
}

Click on the field -> Properties section to change field name:

Create checkbox field

You can add and edit speciphic fields like checkboxes and radiobuttons the same way. In order to check a checkbox, you’ll need to submit an object with the true or false value. Use the following structure:

{
  "Checkbox1": true
}

Create radiobutton field

In order to choose a radiobutton, you’ll need to create a radiobutton group in your pdf. To do this, just give the same Name to several radiobutton fields and a group will be created automatically. Then you need to speciphy the “Radio Button Choice” field for each option of the radiobutton group. This is the value you need to submit to check the radiobutton. Please note that you can style radiobuttons as checkboxes for a better “paper-like” visualization:

Example

Download the example of a fillable PDF for this article.

Here is the example of the data object that could be used for populating this form:

{
      "FirstName": "David",
      "LastName": "Navarro",
      "Address": "3 Main St.",
      "City": "New York",
      "PostalCode": "972013",
      "PhoneNumber": "202-555-0131",
      "Email": "david@sample.com",
      "Activities": "Sports: football, basketball, volleyball",
      "CurrentlyWorking": "No",
      "HistoryCompany": "Acme Corp",
      "HistoryEmploymentSector": "Public",
      "HistorySupervisor": "Derek Clark",
      "HistoryPhoneNumber": "555-777-9999",
      "HistoryPosition": "Marketing director",
      "HistoryDuties": "Developing marketing strategy",
      "HistoryLeaving": "Moving to another city",
      "HistoryContact": "Yes",
      "HistoryEmploymentForm": "Trainee",
      "Date": "06/30/2019",
      "PersonalDataConsent" : false
}

Use cases

Please review examples to learn how to set up an automatically Fillable pdf:

• Using Microsoft PowerAutomate

• Using Plumsail Processes