Create a fillable PDF
A chatbot will often tell you to design the form in Word and choose Save as PDF. That makes a PDF that looks like a form. People still cannot type in the boxes. This page is the sequence that leaves real fields, and the point where Word and Excel stop keeping them.
What “fillable” means
You open the PDF in a browser or a PDF reader and type in the boxes. You do not need Word. A page with lines and empty rectangles is not fillable until a click puts the cursor inside a box.
The free way that works
LibreOffice Writer can export a real PDF form. It is free. Word is not required.
- Type the labels: Name, Date, Amount, or whatever the form actually asks. Leave space beside each label.
- Turn on the form tools: View → Toolbars → Form Controls. In some versions the same buttons are under Form.
- Click Design Mode so it is on. Click Text Box and draw a box next to a label. Use Check Box for a yes or no question.
- Double-click the box. Set Name to a short word such as
NameorAmount. The name is how you tell the answers apart later. - Turn Design Mode off and type in the box inside Writer. If you cannot type there, the box is not a field yet.
- File → Export As → Export as PDF. In the PDF options, on the General tab, tick Create PDF form. Leave the submit format as FDF. Export.
Check it before you send it
Open the PDF in Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome, not only in Writer. Click a box. Type a test answer, save, close the file, and open it again. If the cursor never sits in the box, it is not fillable. Do not email it.
If you only have Microsoft Word
The Developer tab can add content controls so people fill the form inside Word. Turn the tab on under File → Options → Customize Ribbon → Developer. Then use Plain Text Content Control or a check box.
File → Save As → PDF does not turn those controls into boxes a PDF reader can type in. You get a PDF that looks finished. Open that PDF in the browser and click. When the click does nothing, the boxes were only drawn.
If the people receiving the file must type in a PDF, export from LibreOffice with Create PDF form ticked, or use Adobe Acrobat’s Prepare Form tool. Sending the Word file is the honest option when you cannot do either.
What Word can keep afterward
Opening a filled PDF in Word turns it into a document. The fields are gone. Answers may show up as ordinary text, often in the wrong place. You cannot send that Word file back out as the same form.
The PDF as a Word file tool on this site does a different job: each page becomes a picture in a .docx, so the look matches and the text is not editable. Use it when you need the same appearance. Do not use it when you need the fields.
What Excel can keep
A form is not a spreadsheet. PDF to Excel groups text into rows and columns. That works for a table, such as invoice lines. A form with boxes scattered down the page will come out messy, and a scan with no text layer will not come out at all.
If you need a list of replies, make the columns yourself: Name, Date, Amount. Copy the answers in, one row per person. Calculate the total in Excel. Do not trust a converted sheet until you have checked three rows against the PDF.
If the destination is a list, collect the answers in Excel first and use the PDF only as the printable copy.
Where a chatbot helps, and where it does not
Ask it for the list of fields a leave form or a fee receipt should contain. Then draw those fields and run the click test yourself. Do not paste a completed client form, an identity document, or a signed contract into a chatbot to turn it into Excel. Do not upload that file to a random website that promises a fillable PDF.
If you want the form built and the click test done before it goes to other people, describe the form.