How to create editable PDF

Would you like to create a PDF form complete with menus, buttons and text fields that can be freely edited by users? No problem. Believe it or not, this is an extremely simple operation to complete. And no, no commercial software is required – all you need is a free, open source productivity suite that goes by the name of LibreOffice.

In case you’ve never heard of it (badly!), LibreOffice is a free and open source productivity suite that lets you create text documents, presentations, spreadsheets and databases. It is in Italian, including the spelling checker, and can be installed on all popular operating systems: Windows, macOS and Linux. In short: a complete alternative to Microsoft Office that does not require the purchase of licenses or the subscription of online subscriptions.

If I were you, I wouldn’t waste any more time and immediately discover how to create editable PDFs with Writer, the word processing software included in LibreOffice (the free alternative to Microsoft Word). I assure you that this is a much more intuitive operation than you imagine. You just have to take five minutes of free time and put into practice the directions I am about to give you. Enjoy your reading and have fun!

How to install LibreOffice

Let’s start with the LibreOffice download and installation procedure. To download LibreOffice on your computer, connected to the official website of the program and click on the Download version xx button  located in the center of the page.

When the download is complete, open the installation package called LibreOffice_xx_Win_x86.msi and click in sequence on Next  for two consecutive times,  Install ,  Yes  and  Finish  to complete the setup.

If you use a Mac , you must download not only the suite by clicking on the Download version xx button , but also the package to translate the software into Italian (which unlike the Windows version is not included in the basic setup). To do this, click on the Translated User Interface button   located on the LibreOffice website.

When the download is complete, open the dmg package that contains the suite and drag its icon to the Applications folder   of macOS. Then start the software by right clicking on it and selecting the Open item  from the menu that appears and close it: this prevents macOS from blocking its execution as software from unknown sources (therefore not from the Mac App Store).

Now you need to install the Italian language pack. So open the dmg package of the language pack, right-click on the LibreOffice Language Pack file   it contains and click first on the Open item  and then on the Install button   twice in a row to complete the installation of LibreOffice and its translation package.

Create editable PDFs with LibreOffice

To create editable PDF with LibreOffice, start the suite (by selecting the appropriate icon in the Windows Start menu or in the MacOS Launchpad) and click on the Document Writer button located in the left sidebar of the window that opens.

At this point, go to the menu View> LibreOffice Toolbar (top) and select the item Controls for form from the latter. This will bring up the toolbar with all the components needed to create the forms: text fields, multiple choice menus etc.

Now you can proceed to create your form. Then type the introductory part of the document, as if it were a common text file, and write the questions to be answered by the recipients of the questionnaire.

To each section of the form, follow a field that the user can fill in or a series of options / answers to choose from. The tools at your disposal (those present in the LibreOffice toolbar) are the following.

• Checkbox– used to select or confirm a value or option (e.g. acceptance of the rules for the processing of personal data).
• Text box– an empty field where the user can type their personal information or answers to questions.
• Formattedfield – a text field that has a minimum and / or maximum range of values ​​(e.g. the age of a person, from 0 to 99 years old).
• Button– a button to activate a function. In simple modules, like the ones we are talking about today, they don’t help much.
• Radio button– a button for choosing one or more options in response to a question.
• List Box– a menu from which to choose one of the predefined options.
• Combobox – like the list box, plus a text field through which the user can add new options to the default ones.
• Fixed text– a fixed text box.
• Other control fields– pressing this button calls up a “secondary” toolbar dedicated to the forms. Within this “secondary” toolbar are advanced tools such as the date field, the time field, the image buttons, the currency field and more.

All the tools intended for the forms can be added to LibreOffice documents by simply clicking on the appropriate button in the program bar and then selecting the place in the worksheet to insert them. To be precise, you have to hold down the left mouse button and “draw” the area in which to drop the object.

To customize text fields, checkboxes and any other elements added to the form, double-click on it. A window will open containing all the properties of the selected object: from here you can set the text to be displayed next to the checkboxes; the writing font and color to be used for text fields and list boxes; the default state of radio buttons (selected or unselected); and much more.

To make sure that radio buttons close to each other allow the selection of only one answer from those available (eg OK  or No ), double click on each of them and set the same value for all of them in the Group name field . In the caption field , instead, enter the text to be displayed next to each box (which can be different for each button), while in the Name field you can specify a name to assign to each button.

If you want to create a list box with predefined options to choose from, close the window that opens immediately after adding the box to your document (it is used to recall a database, which is not needed for the most basic modules). Then double-click on the empty list box, expand the List Items field in the window that opens and type the options you want to make available to those who will fill out your questionnaire. The options must be inserted in the column, pressing Shift + Enter to go back after typing each of them.

When you have finished creating your form, save it in PDF format by calling the Export to PDF item from the LibreOffice File menu . In the window that opens, make sure there is a check mark next to Create PDF form and press the Export button to select the folder in which to save the final document.

The PDF obtained can be viewed, compiled and printed with any program suitable for the purpose: Adobe Reader, Foxit Reader, MacOS Preview and so on.

Create editable PDFs online

LibreOffice is one of the best tools to create editable PDFs for free. However, if you don’t feel like installing other software on your PC, you can fall back on PDFEscape.

If you’ve never heard of it, PDFEscape is an online service that allows you to create and edit PDF documents directly from your browser. It is completely free, does not require registration (at least not necessarily) and does not require Flash Player or other plugins to work.

To create a form in PDF format with PDFEscape, linked to the home page of the service and click first on the Use free button  located at the top right and then on  Create new PDF document . So choose the number of pages that must compose your form (via the Page count drop-down menu ), press the Create button  and use the tools in the left sidebar to create the document.

Going into more detail, to call up the tools dedicated to modules you have to click on the Form field button  and you have to choose one of the elements available in the Type drop-down menu  that appears in the center of the screen:  text for a simple text field; Text paragraph for a paragraph of text; Checkbox for a box to be marked; Radio for a circular button to mark; Dropdown for a drop-down menu; Listbox for a list of values; Reset button for a button to reset the data entered in the form and  Submit button for a button to confirm the data entered in the form. 

To change the properties of the elements inserted in the document, right-click on them and select  Object properties from the menu that appears.

When you are satisfied with the result obtained, however, you can download the PDF form on your computer by clicking on the green icon with the arrow located in the left sidebar. The document will be fillable in any software suitable for the purpose: Adobe Reader, MacOS Preview, etc.