The Acrobat Pro steps, what the free Reader cannot do, what it costs, and a cheaper route if you only need a form now and then.
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Build and preview fields free. Exporting clickable fields needs a one-time pack ($7) or a monthly plan.
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In Acrobat Pro, select All tools, then Prepare a form, and pick your PDF. Acrobat detects the blanks and turns them into text fields; add checkboxes and other fields from the form components, set font size and tab order in the field properties, then preview and save. The free Acrobat Reader cannot do this.
In Acrobat Pro, select All tools, then Prepare a form, and choose the PDF or scan you want to convert. To start from an empty page instead, use Menu (Windows) or File (macOS), then Prepare a form.
Acrobat identifies the static blanks on the page and turns them into fillable text fields. Check every page; on scans and designed layouts some blanks are missed or placed on the wrong line.
Use the form components to add text fields, checkboxes, radio buttons and the other field types, and drag each one onto its blank.
Right-click a field and choose Properties; the font size is on the Appearance tab, with an Auto option that shrinks long answers to fit. For the order the Tab key follows, use Sort By, then Tab order, in the fields panel.
Select Preview, try a few fields as the recipient would, and save the form.
Creating fields needs a paid Acrobat. Adobe’s page on flat forms says converting a flat form to a fillable one uses Prepare a form in Acrobat Pro and that the feature is not available in Acrobat Reader. The free Reader’s Fill & Sign tools add text and symbols anywhere on a page, which is filling, not creating fields.
US prices on Adobe’s plans page in October 2026: Acrobat Standard $14.99 a month and Acrobat Pro $19.99 a month on an annual plan billed monthly, or $24.99 and $29.99 month to month. Adobe’s plan table lists creating forms for Standard as well, while the help pages describe Prepare a form in Acrobat Pro; if you are buying only for this, check the current plan details first.
A subscription is a lot for one form a month. In a browser tool the steps are the same idea without the install: upload the PDF, scan, photo or Word file, let detection place the fields, fix them, set type and font size, and export a PDF with real form fields.
The file it exports is a standard AcroForm, the same kind of form Acrobat makes, so it opens with clickable fields in Acrobat Reader, Chrome, Edge, Preview and phone PDF apps. Building and previewing is free; the export is a $7 one-time pack or a monthly plan.
Prepare a form sometimes stops with a “Bad PDF” error on files exported from design tools such as Canva. The fix that worked in Adobe’s forum was to export the design again as a flattened PDF and run Prepare a form on that. Fields work on top of a flattened page because a form field is only a rectangle at a position.
Uploading the file, detecting fields, drawing and naming them and previewing the result is free. Downloading the PDF with clickable fields needs a one-time pack ($7, 25 clean downloads) or a monthly plan. The first clean copy of a form you filled yourself is free, but it is flattened, so it has no fields left. Anyone you send the fillable PDF to can type into it in Acrobat Reader, a browser or a phone app without a JustFill account.
Upload the file, see which fields are detected and decide afterwards.
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