How to create a Form in Adobe Acrobat (Pro required)

This article is applicable when you need to create a PDF form in Adobe Acrobat so that only certain text field can be edited and not the entirety of the document. To create the form you need an Adobe Acrobat Pro license - if you do not have one of these you cannot proceed and may wish to send a request to IT for this if you feel it is required

Step 1 - Select the desired PDF file and open

Step 2 - Create the form template

Once opened, expand the bar on the left and select the following option:

Click Create Form on the screen that pops up:

Adobe will auto-fill what it thinks you'd like but it is most likely the case that you'll need to edit this to fit your requirements

In the below example I'd like for the Anticipated Date text boxes to be part of the form and nothing else. This is how it looks currently:

Step 3 - Editing the form

The first step would be to delete the pre-provided text in Anticipated Date and then the two editable boxes in the column title row. Just simply delete the text boxes:

Now I'd like to move the editable fields into the centre of the box and change the size of them. For this I simply drag and resize using the mouse (There is not an option to change location based on the page's X,Y co-ordinates so you'll have to align manually)

Double click into any text box and a new window will open - this is to edit the format within the text boxes. I recommend changing the following fields:

>General

>Appearance

>Options

Once happy click close to apply the changes. This will need to be done for each text box

You should be able to visually confirm the changes on the document:

Step 4 - Save the Form

When finished, click Send at the bottom left (next to Preview). A popup will appear asking you to save

Go ahead and save the file. On the next popup click Cancel

Step 5 - Review & distribute the Form

Now that the PDF Form has been saved you can double check that it is editable by anyone who opens the form. Just open it up in the PDF reader of your choosing (I will use PDF24) and you'll see the newly-inserted text boxes that you can enter info into. You'll also notice that you won't be able to edit any other fields

If you are happy with the form it will be ready to distrubute - if you are not you will be able to open the PDF again in Acrobat and click the Prepare a Form option once again (first screenshot step#2) and it will re-open with the current changes so you don't need to start again

IMPORTANT - The blue highlight background will NOT appear when printed - this is to simply show users where they can input text