How to Add Checkbox and Dropdown List into Your PDF Document [Part 3: Fillable PDF]

Welcome to part 3 of our “How to Make a PDF Form Fillable” series. I hope you’ve learned some helpful tips so far! :-)

You learned how to make a basic PDF fillable in part 1 and you went through customizing form fields by changing its font face, font size, font color, duplicate form fields, and much more in part 2.

Now for the third part of this series I will walk you through on how to use other Form Field Creation Tools in the PDF Escape program.

We have learned how to use “Text” and “Text Paragraph” and so now it is time to learn how to use and customize the other tools which are “Checkbox”, “Radio”, and “Dropdown”. Let’s get started!

PART 3: Form Field Creation Tools (Checkbox, Radio, and Dropdown)

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) Click on Form Field under the Insert tab on the upper right corner.

II. Work it Out a Bit

Form field creation tool: Checkbox

Once you click on Form Field, this box below will appear. These are all different types of tools you can use for your PDF. Let’s start with the Checkbox Form Field Creation Tool.

3) For the “Gender” field or for any other field that requires a Checkbox, click “Checkbox” for Type.

4) Click Select.

5) Click on the document where you want your checkbox to go.

You can click as many times as you want on the document and it will keep inserting a new checkbox. If you want to stop inserting a new checkbox, click the “Click here to disable” bar. I only needed two and the purpose for this is that I want the person filling out my form to place a check mark next to their gender, either male or female.

5.1) Resize the checkboxes by holding and dragging one of its corners.

5.2) Change the color of the check mark.

6) Now there is actually an option if you want to change the shape inside the checkbox. To do this you can either right click and go to object properties or click on the wrench.

6.1) Under the Check Type option there are other shapes to choose from and these are Circle, Cross, Diamond, Square, and Star. I’m going to choose “Star”.

6.2) Click OK.

7) Click inside the boxes to hide the check type/star. This will make the checkbox blank and so the person filling out this form will then be able to click in one of the boxes and a star will show up.

Form field creation tool: Radio

8) For the “Civil Status” field or for any other field that requires the person filling out the PDF to select between one of the choices, click “Radio” for Type.

9) Click Select.

10) Click on the document where you want your radios to go. Resize and change the color if needed.

11) For more Radio options, right click and go to object properties or click on the wrench.

11.1) Choose “Square” for Check Type.

11.2) Click OK.

Shown below, this is what the selected object looks like after changing the shape to Square. You have to repeat steps 11-11.2 to change each shape. I can change each object to a different shape I like, but instead of doing all that work I just went ahead and changed my selected object back to Circle, which is what I do prefer.

NOTE: If you have another field that requires a Radio, you must go back and do steps 8-10!

Form field creation tool: Dropdown

12) For the “Birth Date” field or for any other field that requires a Dropdown, click “Dropdown” for Type.

13) Click Select.

14) Click on the document where you want your dropdown to go. I made three for day, month, and year.

15) To fill in these dropdown boxes, right click and go to object properties or click on the wrench.

15.1) Type inside the Field Options box.

15.2) Click OK.

16) Resize the boxes and change the font color.

After resizing and filling in all my dropdown boxes, this is what it looks like below.

17) Once done, review your document and make sure that you don’t miss any field. You will know if a field is fillable when you see the light green shape on it.

18) Save and download your document.

CLICK HERE to read Part 1 of this series. CLICK HERE to read Part 2 of this series.

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