Create a Word document and save it in Word, then open Acrobat.
Use Adobe Acrobat or other PDF editing software to create a fillable PDF. You may not be able to use email to collect some sensitive information for this reason.
If the form collects any kind of sensitive information, make sure you're collecting and storing it in a way that preserves people's privacy and complies with the law. If you're going to be using the form to collect signatures or agreements, make sure you're legally compliant with whatever requirements are in place in your area for legally binding digital signatures. This can be unwieldy, though, and requires your recipient to either have a printer and scanner or for you to wait for postal mail delivery.Īn alternative is to use digital tools to create a form that someone can fill out on a computer and smart phone and send back to you digitally. You can then ask people to fill it out by hand and mail it back, fax it to you or scan it and email back the completed form. This can be an issue if people haven't signed and completed the forms that you expect.Īn alternative is to send an image or uneditable PDF of a form, or even a paper copy. Ordinarily if you create a form for something like a survey or a contract as a Word document and send it to someone, you run the risk that they will accidentally or intentionally alter the document before filling it out and sending it back. Online tools for collecting document responses and signatures can also generate fillable forms for things like contracts that you can then distribute. You can also use Adobe Acrobat and other PDF tools to convert a Word document to an editable form that anyone with PDF-compatible software can fill out. You can create a fillable form in Word itself, so that other people can fill out the form without editing the underlying document. If you have a Microsoft Word document that you would like to turn into a digitally fillable form, you have a number of options available. How to Convert Word to an Editable PDF Form