Filling in, signing and returning a form

A lease, a tax form or a registration form arrives as a PDF with the instruction “fill in, sign and send back”. The usual route is to print it, write on it, scan it and email the scan. These tools do it on the screen, in your browser, so a form with your address, birth date and signature isn’t uploaded to anyone’s service.

Take care with secrets. This runs only in your browser: what you enter isn't uploaded, stored or put in a link, and the page is built so that it can't send it anywhere else. Your browser's extensions and other software on your device can still see what's on screen, so use a device you trust and real secrets only when you need to. Disconnecting from the internet once the page has loaded gives the most protection. Use is at your own risk: see the terms.

1. Fill in the form

Open the form in Fill PDF Forms. Each text box, check box, radio button and drop-down in it gets its own input, listed under the page it is on. Their names come from the form, so they are sometimes terse (Text1); if you can’t tell which is which, keep the form open in a PDF reader beside it.

Tick Flatten if you want the answers drawn into the page so they can’t be edited afterwards; leave it unticked if the other side may need to change them. Save the filled PDF downloads a copy with -filled added to its name. Open it in a PDF reader before going on: some forms show answers differently from how they were typed, and fields that work out totals or dates aren’t calculated here, so type those yourself.

If the PDF has no fields (a scan, or a form made from a Word file), this tool has nothing to fill. You can still sign it in step 2 and write the answers elsewhere before that.

2. Sign it

Open the filled copy in Sign PDF. Under Your signature, choose How to make it: Draw it with a mouse, pen or finger, Type it in a handwriting script, or Open a picture of it, such as a photo of your signature on white paper. Pick the Page, drag the signature to the signature line, and use Use today’s date or type one into Date beside it (optional). Save the signed PDF gives -signed added to the name.

To use the same signature on other documents, make it once in Signature Maker, and save it as a PNG with a clear background (or SVG when drawn). Sign PDF can open that picture next time with Open a picture of it.

For a multi-page form that wants initials on every page, tick Every page, in the same place under Put it on.

A picture of a signature isn’t a digital signature and doesn’t make a document legally binding by itself. Whether it is accepted depends on the document and the place, so ask the person you’re returning it to. And anyone who holds the file can copy the picture, so don’t put it on files you share widely.

3. Number the pages if the form asks

Some returns want every page numbered, such as a signed form followed by your supporting documents. Put them together in PDF Pages, then open the result in PDF Stamp and set the format to Page {n} of {total} (blank Pages to stamp means every page). Tick Leave the first page unnumbered (it still counts) for a clean cover. If the file also needs a real digital signature, add that last: any later change stops it verifying.

4. Check what the file gives away

A form made in a word processor, or one you filled in, can carry more than the pages show. Open the finished PDF in PDF Info & Clean. Properties lists the author’s name and the app that made it, and the problems at the top list earlier saved versions, comment authors and attached files. Save a clean copy removes them while the pages look the same. The text on the pages is left alone, so a name you typed into the form stays there.

5. Protect it before you email it

If the form holds details that shouldn’t sit in someone’s inbox as plain text, open it in Protect / Unlock PDF, choose Protect it with a password, and type an Open password twice. The file is encrypted with AES-256, and the saved copy is named -protected. Use a long password and send it by another route, such as a text message, never in the same email. Check that the saved copy asks for the password in a PDF reader. A forgotten password can’t be recovered, so keep the unprotected original.

The print and copy options you can untick under What a reader may do are requests that some readers ignore; only the open password keeps people out.