Convert a paper form into an online form

What comes across reliably

Printed labels, section headings, the order of the questions, tick box lists and the underscored blanks that mean "write here". Those four cover most of a paper form. Where a question reads as a date, a number, a phone number or an email address, it comes back as that field type rather than a text box, because the label is usually enough to tell.

What you should expect to fix

Three things, in order of how often they need attention. Whether a field is required, because paper marks that with an asterisk convention that is not always visible. Grids of tick boxes, which sometimes come back as a list of separate questions rather than one rating matrix. And anything printed sideways, in a footer, or in small print, which is where the reader is weakest.

The round trip back to paper

Every classic form has its own PDF layout, separate from the screen layout, with its own order, its own header and footer, and fields you can hide. So you can rebuild the paper form online, collect most answers on a link, and still print a clean blank copy for the people who will only ever fill it in by hand. There is also a fillable PDF export, which produces a real form-field PDF people can type into in a reader.

Do it once, properly

The conversion is worth treating as a rewrite rather than a photocopy. Paper forms carry decades of questions nobody reads the answers to. Before you publish, go down the field list and delete anything you have never used, because every field you keep is a field somebody has to fill in.

How it works, in three steps

1. Step 1

   Photograph or scan the form

   Flat, square on, in even light, one page per file. Attach up to five files of up to 10 MB each in PDF, PNG, JPG, WebP or GIF.

2. Step 2

   Say what to keep

   In the prompt, say whether to keep the wording exactly, which fields are mandatory, and anything on the sheet you do not want carried over.

3. Step 3

   Check the field list against the paper

   Read the two side by side once. Required flags and tick box grids are where the differences are, and both take seconds to fix.

The full walkthrough with screenshots is in the guide Convert a paper form into a web form.

Limits worth knowing

• Attaching a file is a paid plan feature. Free accounts get the upgrade dialog when they press attach.
• Five files, 10 MB each, in PDF, plain text, PNG, JPG, WebP or GIF. Word documents are not accepted directly, so export to PDF first.
• Handwriting in the blanks is not read as data. The reader is after the printed questions, not somebody’s answers.
• The fillable PDF export is available from the Starter plan.

See it on a finished piece

Patient intake form

25 fields

Rental application form

27 fields

Gym membership form

15 fields

Questions people ask

Related pages