Turn the PDF you already use into a fillable form you can reuse

A lot of PDF forms were made to be printed. The fields aren't fillable, so your clients end up filling them with a pen, or you end up retyping their answers into the right boxes yourself. Either way, someone is copying the same information twice, and a handwritten answer is only as good as the handwriting. Converting the PDF to a fillable form fixes that, as long as the form your client fills is still the one you meant to send.

That's how templates work, and they sit at the center of the fenfill features. You upload the PDF you use today: the current edition you downloaded, or your own intake sheet. You don't rebuild it question by question in a form builder, and nothing about the page changes. Your client sees the same page you uploaded. What they send back is that same page, with their answers on it.

Your blank PDF is encrypted in your browser before it's uploaded. If you want the full picture first, here is how fenfill protects your documents.

1. 1

   Upload your PDF

   The form you already use, as it is.

2. 2

   Let fenfill find the fields

   Run field detection on the pages you choose, or place fields yourself.

3. 3

   Check and adjust

   Fix or add anything with the wand and the editor.

4. 4

   Save it and send it

   Keep it as a template and send it every time you need it.

Only the middle two steps take any work, and you do them once. After that, the template is ready every time you need it.

Many forms are flat: the lines and boxes are printed on the page, and nothing in the file says where an answer goes. On flat and scanned PDFs, fenfill uses AI to find the fields, and each one it finds becomes a box your client can fill.

Some PDFs already have fillable fields built in. fenfill reads those directly, and detection doesn't run at all. You start from the fields the form's author made, ready for you to check.

Detection runs only when you choose to run it, and only on the pages you pick. You can skip it and set up a flat form entirely by hand, or run it on one page and place the rest yourself. Either way, you decide what gets set up and when.

Every field gets a type, and the type decides what your client sees when they tap it. A template can hold:

• text, including multi-line answers
• checkboxes
• dates
• signatures
• comb boxes, one character per box
• choice groups
• tables

Types matter most on official forms. A comb field puts one character in each printed box, so an ID number lines up with the boxes on the page, and a table keeps each row's answers in its own cells.

Detection gives you a head start, but it isn't perfect. That's what the wand is for.

If you've tried a desktop PDF editor's automatic field detection, you know the feeling: fields get missed, and placing the rest by hand defeats the purpose. On flat forms, that approach misses fields and leaves the fixing to you.

In fenfill, the fix is simple. Pick the magic wand, draw a rough box around a line or a box on the page, and the field snaps to it. You don't have to be precise.

The editor handles everything else. Change a field's type, resize it, or move it, whether fenfill found it or you drew it yourself. A text field that should be a date, or a checkbox that landed a little off, is a small fix.

Treat detection as a first draft and the editor as your review. Go through the page once before you send it, the way you'd proofread a letter, and your client never sees a field in the wrong place. If detection skipped a field entirely, draw it where the answer should go and choose its type. It becomes part of the template like any other field.

A fenfill template isn't a one-off conversion you download and forget. You set it up once and keep it, and every client after that gets the same form, already set up. When a form arrives, there's no rebuilding it in a form builder and no redoing the fields.

That's the real difference between the ways a PDF form gets filled online. A form builder gives your client a new web form, not your document. A desktop PDF editor keeps your document but leaves the missing fields to you, and your clients often need a desktop reader to fill it. A template keeps your page and fills in any browser.

When a client finishes, they download the filled PDF: the same document, with their answers stamped on and flattened. They send it to you by email, or however they usually send you files, and fenfill shows you they've completed it. Your clients don't need an account or an app, and they can fill it in their phone's browser. Here's more on filling on a phone and on how sending and collecting works.

Each template is shared one of two ways. A public link lets anyone who has it open and fill the form. Private links (on Pro and up) give each person their own link, which you can revoke at any time, and show you whether it's pending, opened or completed. You can switch a form between the two.

Immigration practices can use it this way: keep the current edition of a form as a template and send it to each client, instead of retyping the same answers into it again and again.

The next client gets the same form, already set up. So does the one after that.

fenfill plans meter setting forms up, not filling them. Field detection uses page scans: one for each page it reads, and again if you run it on a page a second time. Filling, sharing and downloading never use page scans, however many clients fill the form.

So the cost of a template is paid once, when you set it up. Forms that already have fillable fields skip detection, and a flat form you set up by hand doesn't need it either. Your clients don't need an account to fill anything.

That makes a template worth more the more you use it. A form you send to every new client costs the same to set up whether ten people fill it or a hundred.

To send a form to one client at a time, with a private link for each person and a status for each link, you'll need Pro or a higher plan. The limits and prices for each plan are on one page: see the plans.