Check if a PDF is fillable and list every form field: name, type, page, value and flags. Export the names as a CSV header for batch filling. Everything runs in your browser.
A PDF is fillable when the file itself contains form fields. In the standard form model, AcroForm, every field is a small record inside the document: a name, a type, a rectangle on a page, and a value. A viewer that finds these records draws a box, lets you click into it, and stores what you type inside the field, so the values travel with the file when you save it.
You will meet three kinds of PDF. AcroForm files carry regular fields and open in every mainstream viewer, from Acrobat to Chrome to macOS Preview. XFA files (XML Forms Architecture) were built with Adobe LiveCycle Designer and store the form as XML; the format was deprecated in the PDF 2.0 standard, and viewers that do not support it show a placeholder page instead of the form. Flat files have no fields at all: scans, photos of paper forms, print-to-PDF output, and documents exported from Word or Google Docs without form controls. The lines and boxes you see are just drawings.
Desktop viewers give the same answer, with a little guesswork. In Adobe Acrobat Reader an interactive form shows a purple message bar and the pointer turns into an I-beam over a field, while a flat form can only be marked up with the Fill & Sign tools, which place text anywhere on the page. In Preview on a Mac, an AutoFill Form button appears above a PDF whose fields it recognizes; if Preview will not let you type into the form, it offers a text box from the Form Filling Toolbar instead. This inspector reads the field records directly, so you get the answer and the full list in one step.
A scan is never fillable because a scanner produces one picture per page: there is no text layer and nothing for a viewer to click into. Print-to-PDF does the same to a form that used to be fillable, since the printer driver draws the field appearances as page graphics and drops the form dictionary. Both need fields added back before anyone can type into them, which is what Convert PDF to Fillable Form does.
Drag the file onto the box above or click to browse. It is read locally by pdf.js and pdf-lib and never uploaded.
Green means AcroForm fields were found. Amber means the file is an XFA form. Gray means it is flat and needs fields before anyone can type into it.
Copy the names, download the full table as CSV, or download the one-row CSV template to use as the spreadsheet header for a batch fill.
Every automated way of filling a PDF addresses fields by name. In a mail merge or batch fill, each column of your spreadsheet maps to one field name and each row becomes one filled PDF. Command-line tools and libraries such as pdftk, pypdf and pdf-lib take the same names, and Zapier or Make style integrations list them as the inputs you connect. A wrong or misspelled name means an empty box, not an error message.
Names are hierarchical. A name like applicant.address.city means a parent field applicant with children, and the fully qualified name joined with dots is what tools expect. This inspector always shows the full name, exactly as pdf.js and pdf-lib resolve it.
Because everything keys off the name, renaming a field silently breaks every template, script and column mapping that used the old one. If you must rename, do it once, before the form goes into circulation, and export a fresh header row for anyone who merges into it.
JustFill fills fillable PDFs by field name and detects the boxes on flat ones. Type into a single form, or hand it a spreadsheet and get one finished PDF per row.
Need to add or rename fields? Make PDF Fillable edits fields in your browser.