How Do I Create Fillable Forms for My Resume Clients? (Q&A)

Every day, I get questions from resume writers! I reprint many of them on here to help other resume writers! Here's today's question!

Question:
I just updated my client agreement and some of my other forms and my graphic designer created some pretty PDFs for clients to fill out. How do I make these PDFs fillable forms so the clients can just put the information online and send it to me?

My Answer:
There are three options for giving clients an interactive way to complete your client forms. (And I would still post the "pretty" PDF versions for folks who don't want to provide their information online in any way, shape or form!)

The first allows you to use your actual PDFs. The only reliable method I know of to allow you to do that is using Adobe Acrobat Pro software:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/convert-existing-forms-to-fillable-pdfs.html

It's now available as a monthly subscription vs. what it used to be as a one-time $$$$ cost.

There's also folks on Fiverr.com that will do this for you for a small fee.
Here's one:
http://www.fiverr.com/pdfhelper/create-pdf-fillable-forms-for-your-company

There are a couple of "knock-off" "fillable PDF" converters, but I can't speak to their reliability:
http://www.pdffiller.com
http://www.PDFill.com

The second is to use an online form builder.
I personally use FormSite. You can see an example of a FormSite form here:
http://acasseroletogo.com/onlineordering.html

You can also link FormSite to payment providers (like Authorize.net and PayPal) so that the client can securely provide their payment information online when they submit their information too.

(My husband is a website designer, and he uses FormSite on his client sites.)

JotForm (http://www.jotform.com) probably has similar functionality and like I said, if you use WordPress, you can use online forms like Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms as WordPress plug-ins.

The third option is a fillable Word document.
(Bronze members of BeAResumeWriter.com, you can log into your BeAResumeWriter.com account and go to the Pass-Along Materials page and check out the different versions of the Resume Critique Form and LinkedIn Critique Form to see how this works in practice.)

Here are the instructions for creating a fillable Word document:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/create-a-fillable-form-HA102840128.aspx

If you have a different version of Word (not as new), Google "Fillable Word document" and the version of Word you have (i.e., Word 2003). It actually was easier to make them in the old versions, but it's still pretty simple! :-)

I hope one of those solutions helps!


Note: None of these links are affiliate links, and I can't vouch for any of the services mentioned, except FormSite, which I personally use.