FormForge

What it does

FormForge turns a flat PDF into a fillable one without leaving the browser. Load a document and press Detect fields: it looks for the places a reader is meant to write — ruled lines, boxes, dotted underscores — and proposes fields there. From that starting point you move, resize, rename, retype or delete anything, and add the ones it missed by hand.

The field types

Text, checkbox, radio, dropdown, signature, date and number. Each one has a properties panel for its name, tooltip, required and read-only flags, exact position and size, default value and text options, so a form can be made to match the document rather than approximately fit it.

Design, fill, preview

The editor has three modes. Design is where you place and adjust fields. Fill lets you type into the form you have just built, which is the quickest way to find a tab order that makes no sense or a box that is one line too short. Preview shows the result as a reader will meet it. There is a set of AcroForm checks with one-click fixes for the structural problems that make a PDF open badly in one reader and fine in another.

The export

An ordinary AcroForm PDF. It opens and fills in Acrobat, Preview, Chrome, Firefox and mobile PDF apps, with no dependency on FormForge afterwards. Signatures can be drawn, typed or cryptographic.

Where the file goes

Nowhere. The PDF is parsed and rewritten inside the tab and is never uploaded, so the tool works offline and documents holding personal or contractual content stay on the machine they came from. Drafts are kept in the browser's own storage — the header simply reads "Saved on this device". There is no account, no install and nothing to cancel.

Why it exists

For the recurring small chore of being handed a PDF that was clearly designed to be printed and signed — an intake form, a rental application, a school permission slip — and wanting to fill it in properly instead of printing, writing and scanning.