How to Create a Fillable PDF Form from Word or Google Docs

Creating a fillable PDF form is easier than you think! It doesn't matter if you use Microsoft Word or Google Docs to create your documents. You can make great-looking PDF files that others can fill in with ease. In this video, Scott Friesen shows you how to make a fillable PDF form with help from OnlyOffice.

Transcript:
​Would you like to turn your document into a fillable form? Well, it's actually a lot easier than you think. So in this video I'm going to show you how to take any Microsoft Word document or Google Doc and turn it into a fillable PDF. So let's get started. To begin, all you need to do is create your form in the word processor of your choice. So in this example, I'm in Microsoft Word but you can create this in Google Docs or in a variety of other word processors as well. So in this case, I've created a fairly simple one page form leaving space for the areas where I'm going to be adding fillable components. So at the top here I've got things like name, phone, and email. Of course, I'm going to make this fillable in the next step, but down below I've also left some space for some drop down menus. Keep in mind you don't have to create tables like you see here. Sometimes that can be helpful to keep things in order, under this services menu, for example, I'm going to be adding a couple of check boxes but just down below, when I ask them when you would like their service to begin, I'm going to reserve these spaces for radio buttons. So you are probably already familiar with creating documents within Word or Google Docs. So you can make this as simple or as complex as you needed. In fact, you may already have a form that is ready to go. So let's move on to the next step. Now, once your document has been saved, we're going to go online and travel to OnlyOffice.com. OnlyOffice is a full productivity suite which allows us to edit, share and collaborate in a variety of different ways. I'm going to click on documents because this is where we're going to add those fillable components. Now the very first step is to upload the file to OnlyOffice. Now you can also choose to connect directly to Drive or OneDrive or a variety of other shared cloud services but in this case, I'm going to go and find that file. So let's go upload our file. And in this case, this is the landscaping document that we were looking at just a moment ago. Once the file has been uploaded to our OnlyOffice account next we're going to want to select the orange button, create and then come down to form template. Now you could choose to create a fillable form from scratch but in this case, because we've already done most of the work, we're going to say from a text document. OnlyOffice is going to show us all of the text documents available to us. And ours happens to be the very first one on the list. So I'm going to select that one and say create. Now I have an option here to rename it if I want to. So maybe I'm just going to say sample in this case just so it stands out and I'm going to hit that check mark beside it. That's going to now open up this file within the OnlyOffice editor. And the great thing is is that we have all of these fillable fields and fillable options available to us. The other bonus is because OnlyOffice is a full document suite, if we need to make changes to anything within this document we can do so here as well. If I select the home menu for example, we have all of the familiar options available to us including headings and other editing tools, just like we would see in Microsoft Word or Google Docs. But for our purposes, we want to focus on the forms tab. So it's really as easy as selecting the area of the form where you would like to include a fillable component. So under name, I'm going to include a text field, seems to make sense, and I'm going to do the same thing for phone and email, but we do have some additional options available to the right. So for example, here's the placeholder text, your text here. Well, maybe in my case, I'm going to say I only need the first name of that person. So I'm going to type in first name. So that's what they're going to see in that fillable field. Under the phone field I'm also going to include a text field but this time I'm going to add a few enhancements. Number one, I'm going to select this checkbox which says comb of characters. What that's going to do is actually break this up into different components. It may be hard to see that at the moment, but if I come down to border color and select a darker shade now you can see as I start to enter in numbers, yes you can see that things are being added along the way. So it's going to be that much more obvious that I'm asking for a phone number. Next, let's add a couple of dropdown menus to these questions down below. Now, up in the ribbon, you can see that we have two choices available to us, a dropdown menu and a combo box. Now some of you may be confused as to what is the difference between these two. They're both going to look almost identical. The difference with a combo box is that you allow the user to input an option which is not listed amongst the choices. So for example, in this question, how did you hear about us? I'm actually going to insert a combo box and on the right hand side I can add the different value options. So maybe Facebook is going to be one of my options. Maybe I'm going to say Google search is going to be another one of the options. And maybe the last one is going to be like an advertisement, something like that. But of course there could be a variety of different options. So what this will allow the user to do is actually choose either one of these three or they can type in their own. I'll show you how that works once we've finished publishing the form. In this second option down below I think it's going to make more sense if I just add a traditional drop down menu. So for my value options, maybe I'm going to add Portland. Let's add Seattle and let's add Vancouver as well. So those are going to be my three options for location. If I want to change the order and put Seattle as the first option, I can just select it and move it up. So if I want to add some choices there I can do so. And this placeholder text, just like you saw when I inserted the name is optional. If I don't want anything there, I can leave it blank. Or I can just put in a word such as select, maybe something very simple so they can know where to click and where to choose. Next up I want to know what kind of service they are after, and in this case, I'm going to add some check boxes. Now I've already reserved a column for these check boxes. So this is really as easy as inserting my cursor, selecting a check box, coming back down, selecting another check box and then the third one down below. So now they can choose one or more of the services that they are after. Lastly, let's add a radio button to this final question. When would you like your service to begin? It wouldn't make sense for me to add a checkbox here because I only want them to select one of these three. So in this case, I'm going to select a radio button. I'm going to come down here, select another radio button and then a third radio button as well. And remember, you can continue to edit along the way. So maybe I'd like to add a single space in between those just so it looks a lot more aesthetically pleasing and easier for people to fill out. Maybe the last thing that I'll let them do is add in a date. So I'm going to add a text field here and I'm going to say today's date, maybe something like that just to remind them what I'm looking for them to fill in that last component. Now, once you are finished and happy with the look and feel of your form, all you need to do is come up to the file tab select download as, and we are going to select PDF. So now when I open up this PDF on my computer I can quickly and easily fill out this form. So I'm going to enter in my first name here. I can start to fill in my phone number which of course starts with 555. And you can see how easy it was for me to see how many characters, how many numbers they are asking for. Coming down to our combo box down below, I could say that I found it through Google search but I can always click on this field and because it's a combo box, I can enter in an additional option here. Where are you located? Located in Portland. And then let's come down to our check boxes and I am looking for both mowing and weeding services. And when would you like your service to begin? Next month, but on second thought, the lawn is getting pretty long. How about this month? Let's start the services this month. Now, if you enjoyed this video, you'll also enjoy the other app reviews and tutorials right here on the Simpletivity channel. Remember being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.