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by pheasantquiff 1398 days ago
Hate PDF Forms? Check out my No Code solution!

Create a form using text markup. Get an URL pointing to the form and mail it to your customers.

I recently received a PDF form (created by M$ Word). I use Linux and managed to open it with Libreoffice (Draw!). The text entry boxes were misaligned or just missing. Digits each had a separate text field. Tiresome... By the time I had re-exported it to PDF with the fields filled, some of the formatting had been changed/lost.

So I made this.

I'd rather fill out forms in my browser. Browsers can print PDF. What could go wrong?

Tell me in the comments below.

3 comments

Thanks. I did a re-release and deleted the database of forms. Link is now updated.
I like PDF forms, they're just hard to create.

You don't need a specialized app like Libreoffice to open and fill out a PDF form, just use any modern browser.

Editing in PDF sounds like a good idea.

I just tried it in Firefox (latest/postmodern, Linux) and none (not a single one) of the form's fields are editable. It's an even worse experience than Libreoffice.

Pdf.js (which Firefox uses) does support filling out Acrobat Forms (acroforms as well as XFA). Possibly the PDF you have is corrupted?

You can read more about PDF.js support for forms here.[0]

Libreoffice also supports creating Acrobat Forms.[1]

[0] https://blog.mozilla.org/attack-and-defense/2021/10/14/imple...

[1] https://www.linuxuprising.com/2019/02/how-to-create-fillable...

Really cool! Nice work solving a problem and putting it out there for people to see!

Will the code be out somewhere so others can contribute to it?