Menu

FormMaker

FormMaker: Creating a Fillable, Interactive PDF in InDesign Has Never Been Easier!

Hassle-free interactive, fillable PDF forms straight out of InDesign

With InDesign’s half-baked interactive PDF form features, any form formatting, validation, or calculation has to be done in Acrobat.

This means entering a world of pain: Every time an edit is made to the InDesign file, the form has to be reformatted, reprogrammed, and reset in Acrobat!

A small change to the layout or text of the form that should take less than a minute can take over an hour (!) for complex forms because so much has to be redone in Acrobat each time a change is made.

Cue FormMaker!

With FormMaker, you have access to all Acrobat’s form field functionality – in InDesign!

FormMaker eliminates that “extra step” you must take when creating interactive PDFs in InDesign.

This means that with FormMaker you get interactive PDFs straight from InDesign, complete with font formatting (font, size, color), text formatting (alignment, rich text), comb fields, date fields, simplified calculations, and much more.

In fact, almost anything you can do in Acrobat to a form, you can now do in InDesign with FormMaker!

Use code-free formatting options to turn the user’s input into correctly formatted numbers, dates, times, zip codes and much more.

Use easy-to-apply validations to ensure that numbers, dates, or selections are within valid limits.

Use simple calculation options to make one form field display the sum, or product, or average, etc., of other forms fields.

Additionally, you can add document-level JavaScripts to your forms, as well as JavaScripts triggered by all mouse and keyboard events that Acrobat supports, and custom keyboard, formatting, validation and calculation scripts.

As an added bonus, because no edits or workarounds are needed in Acrobat, interactive PDF form accessibility remains intact – the PDF form remains as accessible as InDesign can make it.

With FormMaker you can make a truly fully interactive, useful PDF form inside InDesign without needing to do anything in Acrobat!

The final result is a rich, interactive form experience for the end user: A standard PDF that can be opened by anyone with the free Adobe PDF Reader.

The “Set Tab Order” window

The word ‘minimalist’ doesn’t do justice to InDesign’s Set Tab Order feature. Apart from dragging up and down, there’s nothing there to help you set the tab order of a complex interactive PDF form!

FormMaker now comes with a very powerful Set Tab Order dialog that really makes easy work of setting the tab order of complex forms. With a few clicks, set regions on the page to be sorted by row, column, or both. Enable the “Show tab order” checkbox to see a visual representation of the tab order of all fields on the page!

Does the end-user need to have FormMaker installed?

No! That’s the beauty of the thing! The PDFs created by FormMaker are regular, plain-vanilla PDFs. The end-user does not need to have FormMaker installed. In fact, they won’t even know that the PDF was created with FormMaker.

What Users Say

  • “When I was developing some training programs for people who are using InDesign to make forms, the process was … ready to break! I was up a creek! … I was going to say, ‘I can’t build a process for you that works.’ Interestingly enough, in my research, I found FormMaker Pro. It’s a form formatting tool for Adobe InDesign that has a really great use in the workflow … It saved the training that I did, and I can’t say enough good things about it! “
    Damian Sian - Accessibility Expert

Quick Video Tutorial

Watch this short tutorial to see the power of FormMaker:

Pricing

FormMaker Free

FREE / license
  • Set font, color, alignment and more to form fields
  • In InDesign, include Acrobat validation, calculation and formatting for automatic calculation and updating of fields
  • In InDesign, include Acrobat scripts that are triggered by mouse and keyboard events
  • Limited to 1-page forms only
  • Limited to 10 fields per form
Download Below

FormMagic Pro

$ 19.95 / month
  • Set font, color, alignment and more to form fields
  • Create forms of any length
  • Create as many form fields as needed
  • No field validation, calculation, formatting or custom JavaScripts
Buy Now

FormMaker Pro

$ 29.95 / month
  • Set font, color, alignment and more to form fields
  • Create forms of any length
  • Create as many form fields as needed
  • In InDesign, include Acrobat validation, calculation and formatting for automatic calculation and updating of fields
  • In InDesign, include Acrobat scripts that are triggered by mouse and keyboard events
  • … and much more. See below, in the Full Feature Comparison Table, for the full list!
Buy Now

FormMaker Free

FREE / license
  • Set font, color, alignment and more to form fields
  • In InDesign, include Acrobat validation, calculation and formatting for automatic calculation and updating of fields
  • In InDesign, include Acrobat scripts that are triggered by mouse and keyboard events
  • Limited to 1-page forms only
  • Limited to 10 fields per form
Download Below

FormMagic Pro

$ 179 / year
  • Set font, color, alignment and more to form fields
  • Create forms of any length
  • Create as many form fields as needed
  • No Acrobat scripts
Buy Now

FormMaker Pro

$ 299 / year
  • Set font, color, alignment and more to form fields
  • Create forms of any length
  • Create as many form fields as needed
  • In InDesign, include Acrobat validation, calculation and formatting for automatic calculation and updating of fields
  • In InDesign, include Acrobat scripts that are triggered by mouse and keyboard events
  • … and much more. See below, in the Full Feature Comparison Table, for the full list!
Buy Now

Instant Download

FormMaker is available in 2 editions:

FormMaker Free works with single-page InDesign documents and up to 10 form fields. Fill in the form below to download FormMaker Free Edition.

FormMaker Pro works with forms of any length and has all features, including adding Acrobat validation, calculation, and formatting scripts right inside InDesign, as well as scripts triggered by mouse and keyboard events!

To subscribe, use the appropriate button above. Remember! The annual plan comes with a 25% saving compared to the monthly plan!

Your product will be available for instant download when you complete the purchase.

Full Feature Comparison Table

Feature Native InDesign FormMagic FormMaker Pro
Text alignment in form fields (left, right, center) • •
Comb fields • •
Rich text fields • •
Rotated fields (90°, 180°, 270°) • •
Use special Acro-safe fonts (Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol, Adobe Pi) • •
Apply a font for form fields that will be fully embedded in the PDF (end-users do not need to have it installed on their own computer) • •
Default text in text fields • •
Text field character limit •
Line style (solid, dashed, beveled, inset, underlined) •
Editable combo boxes •
Supports file-selection fields •
Real Acrobat checkbox styles (check, circle, cross, diamond, square, star) •
Commit selected value immediately (combo box and list box fields) •
Apply default field value •
Enable spellcheck for text fields •
Radios in unison •
Run a Javascript triggered by a user action (mouse up, mouse down, mouse enter, mouse exit, focus, blur) •
Format fields with predefined Acrobat formatting (number, currency, percent, date, time, zip codes, phone, social security, arbitrary mask) •
Code-free negative number style (parentheses, red text) •
Add custom keystroke and format scripts •
Code-free field validation ("Field is in the range between...") •
Custom validation scripts •
Code-free field calculations (+, ×, average, minimum, maximum) •
Simplified field calculations •
Custom calculation scripts •
Add and edit custom document Javascripts •
Create a date-picker field •
Easily create an "Add an image" field •

Buy FormMaker Pro

FormMaker Pro: $29.95/month

FormMaker Pro: $299/year (save $60/year)

System Requirements

System Requirements

  • All recent versions of InDesign (including the latest)
  • Acrobat X or higher
  • Works with Windows or macOS

Download Free Edition

Click here to download the free version of FormMaker.

 

Video: Introducing FormMaker

Watch a short video to learn about FormMaker

Version History

Download FormMaker Pro Version History PDF

User Guide

To browse the full product documentation, click here.

Download the Free Edition of FormMaker

Fill in the form below to download FormMaker Free Edition and give it a test drive.

The Free Edition is identical to the Pro edition, except that it is limited to a single-page form, and up to 10 form fields only.





Installation Instructions

In the download package of FormMaker you will find separate installation instructions (PDF) for macOS or Windows. Follow these instructions carefully. They will tell you how to install FormMaker on your computer.

If you need help installing FormMaker on your computer, please contact us.

If you have installed the two FormMaker scripts correctly, by copying them to the correct folders on your computer, you will see a new entry in your InDesign scripts panel called FormMaker, and in Acrobat you will see a new entry at the bottom of the Edit menu called “FormMaker”.

Important note for all users of the latest version of Acrobat: If you are using the latest version of Acrobat, you must disable the new UI. See the installation instructions PDF for more information.

Still Have Questions?

Get in touch by email  or phone (+972 8 9799850) and we’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Money-back Guarantee

If you are not satisfied with FormMaker for any reason, simply let us know within 30 days of initial subscription for a full refund. After that, you may cancel your subscription at any time.

“FormMaker … I can't say enough good things about it!”

Damian Sian, Accessibility Expert
Buy Now

Article Comments

  1. Ariel

    February 7, 2025 3:52 am

    Have a question about this product?
    We’re here to help! Ask your questions on the Id-Extras.com forum!

« Older Comments

Comments are now closed for this article.