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How to Customize Typeface and Form Fields in Your PDF Document [Part 2: Fillable PDF]


Now that you know how to create basic fillable PDFs using single line and multi-line text fields, I will now show you how to customize form fields by changing its font face, font size, font color, duplicate form fields, and much more.

PART 2: Customizing your fillable PDFs

I. Get Started

1) I have uploaded my PDF Form Sample in www.pdfescape.com and I am ready to make it fillable. Go ahead and do the same.

2) Adding form field: Remember, click on Form Field under the Insert tab on the upper right corner. For the Form Field type I have selected “Text”. Hold and drag to fill up the text box. This is what mine looks like below.

II. Work it Out a Bit

Now you might have noticed above your PDF sheet that these settings popped up for the particular form field you just made.

3) Change the font face, font size, and font color to your preference. Also, go ahead and click on B (bold) and I (Italicized). I have changed these settings to my preference and have typed the word “Name” shown in the image below. Simple, right?

Now what I really want to show you is that there are so much more you can do with your form field!

4) For additional settings: Click on the Wrench and Form Field Properties will pop up.

4.1) Choose which options you would like to change.

  • Name - means to add a title to the form field you created.

  • Read-only - means that this form field is only readable and not fillable if you have this checked.

  • Required - means that this form field must be filled out or else it won’t allow the person filling out your PDF form to save the document.

  • Multi-line - is the same as the Text Paragraph form field. This will automatically change the text box into paragraph form instead of just a single line across the page.

  • Max Length - means that you can set a number of letters allowed in this text box.

  • Comb Field - is traditionally used in forms that are designed to be scanned and used with Optical Character recognition to force the user to enter each character in its own box. It's also occasionally used for highly rigid fields, such as Social Security Number.

  • Do Not Scroll - means that when they type so much that if fills the paragraph up, there won’t be a scroll option to show the remaining of the text for them to continue.

  • Alignment - means you can choose the option of where the text will be aligned; either left, center, or right.

4.2) The only additional setting I changed is the Alignment. I changed it to center.

4.3) Click “OK”.

5) Let’s say I want to use the same settings for my Email Address and Message text boxes. Instead of going back and creating a new Form Field, adjusting the font size, font color, etc. (doesn’t apply to the additional settings found in the Wrench), I can actually just simply click and drag on any fields and it will automatically create the same settings!