Create a fillable PDF form from Excel
Create a fillable PDF form from Excel that people can type into. Blank cells become text boxes, Excel dropdowns become PDF dropdowns, and the generated page layout stays put.
Wanted every value editable instead? That’s the other tool.
Drop your Excel file here
.xlsx, .xlsm, .csv and .tsv. Add several at once to combine them into one PDF.
Your file is read in this browser tab. It is never uploaded.
A label and the blank cell beside it is all it takes — that becomes a fillable field, and an Excel dropdown becomes a PDF one. Type [ ]where you want a tick box, and draw a border round a cell only if the text beside it doesn’t read like a label. Every guess is editable before you download. Nothing is uploaded.
Haven’t got one to hand? Start from an example — the same leave request, described two ways.
A form laid out in a sheet
Labels down one column, the cells people fill in empty beside them. What the form your company already uses probably looks like.
·
A list of the questions
One row per field, with a Type column. Nothing to lay out and nothing to leave blank — the form gets built for you.
·
Works with a form laid out in a sheet, or with a list of fields — one row per question, with a Type column.
Before you convert: charts, images and shapes are not rendered, and legacy .xls files are not supported. Excel-specific effects may differ, and fitting a very wide sheet onto one page can make text small. Check the preview and fields before using the PDF.
What you get
A form people can type into, not a picture of one
Excel's own Save as PDF flattens everything. This keeps the layout and adds the fields.
Your layout, not a generic form
The sheet uses the same layout plan as our Excel-to-PDF converter, and fields are placed over their matching cells. Supported merges, fills, fonts and column widths remain visible; charts, images and shapes are not rendered.
It works out what's fillable
A blank cell next to a label, a cell with a border drawn round it, a tick box, a blank row under a table heading — each one is a different way of saying “write here”, and each is detected. Every field tells you which signal it came from, so you can see why it exists.
Excel dropdowns become PDF dropdowns
Data-validation lists carry through as real choice fields, whether the choices are typed into the rule or sit in a range on a lookup sheet. The lookup sheet itself is left out of the PDF.
Field names you control
Names are taken from the labels beside each cell and cleaned up for PDF. Rename any of them before you download — the name is what a form filler shows and what exported form data is keyed on. Duplicate names are flagged, because a PDF treats them as one shared field.
Text, paragraph, number, date, checkbox, dropdown
Types are guessed from the label — “Notes” gets a paragraph box, “Approved” gets a checkbox, “Signature” gets a line to sign on, “Due date” gets a date box — and every guess is a dropdown away from being corrected.
Nothing is uploaded
The forms people convert are HR, medical, finance and legal templates. This one is built entirely in your browser: there is no upload endpoint to send them to, which you can confirm in the Network tab.
Step by step
Create a fillable PDF form from Excel in four steps
- 01
Drop your Excel form in
An .xlsx, .xlsm or .csv laid out as a form, or a sheet listing the fields you want. It's read in this tab — nothing is sent anywhere.
- 02
Check what was detected
Every fillable area is outlined on the page preview. Click a box to jump to it in the field table.
- 03
Fix the guesses
Rename fields, change a type, add dropdown choices, mark fields required, or switch off anything that shouldn't be fillable.
- 04
Download the fillable PDF
Open it in any PDF reader and type straight into it. Save the field list as CSV if you need the names elsewhere.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How do I make an Excel form fillable as a PDF?
Drop the .xlsx into the tool above. It reads the sheet, works out which cells are meant to be filled in — blank cells beside a label, bordered boxes, tick marks, Excel dropdowns — and lays PDF form fields over them. You check the detected fields, correct anything it got wrong, and download. Excel itself can't do this: its own Save as PDF produces a flat picture of the sheet with no fields in it at all.
Does Excel have a way to create fillable PDF forms?
No. Excel exports a static PDF — the layout is preserved but every cell is just ink on the page, so nobody can type into it. Adding fields normally means opening the PDF in Acrobat Pro and running Prepare Form, or paying for a converter. This does that step for you, in the browser, for free.
Which cells become fields?
Four signals, in order of confidence: a cell with an Excel data-validation list (becomes a dropdown), a cell containing a ☐ or a row of underscores, an empty cell with a border drawn round it, and an empty cell sitting next to a label that reads like a prompt. Blank rows under a table heading become one field per column, per row. Anything with no reason to be an input is left alone.
Can I change what it detected?
Yes — that's most of the tool. The field table under the preview lets you rename any field, change its type, add or edit dropdown choices, mark it required, or switch it off entirely. Nothing is generated until you press download.
What if my sheet is a list of questions rather than a form?
That's detected too. If a sheet has a Field (or Label / Question) column and a Type column, it's read as a specification rather than a layout, and a clean label-and-box form is built from it — one row per field, with Options and Required columns honoured if they're there.
Will the fields work in Acrobat, Preview and Chrome?
Yes. The output is a standard AcroForm PDF, which is what Acrobat, Acrobat Reader, Apple Preview, Chrome, Edge and Firefox all understand. Filling and saving works the same way it does with any other fillable PDF.
Can it add digital signature fields or calculations?
Not yet, and it's worth being clear about it. A field labelled Signature comes out as a line to sign on with a text box over it — handy on paper, but not a cryptographic signature field — and there is no support for calculated fields or JavaScript actions. If you need a legally binding signature block, add it in Acrobat afterwards — everything else in the form will still be there.
Does the file get uploaded?
No. Parsing, layout, field detection and PDF generation all run in your browser. There is no API route and no upload endpoint on this site, which is checkable: open the Network tab before you drop a file in and you'll see nothing leave the page.
The other two tools
Create PDF from Excel
The converter. Drop a workbook in, see the exact page breaks before you commit, and download.
Open →Create an editable PDF from Excel
Each data cell arrives pre-filled with what Excel says, and can be changed. For price lists, quotes and schedules that need corrections after export.
Open →Before you convert a form
How to create PDF from Excel
To learn how to create PDF from Excel, start with File → Export → Create PDF/XPS, after setting Page Layout → Scale to Fit →…
Open →Are online Excel to PDF converters safe?
Are online Excel to PDF converters safe? It depends on whether they upload the workbook. Server-side tools receive the file;…
Open →Make your Excel form fillable
Drop the file in, check the fields it found, download a PDF people can type into. Free, and it never leaves your browser.
Back to the converter