Want to create interactive, fully functional PDF forms without spending $300 on Adobe Acrobat? PDFAmigo has a web-based solution for you. Although we’ve reviewed other form-building apps in the past, PDFAmigo is probably the simplest to get started with. You don’t even have to sign up-just go to the site and start building your form.
PDFAmigo’s simple interface allows you to insert and customize different form fields. You can choose different fonts and colors, and there is grid you can turn on to keep all of your fields lined up. Once you’re done, you can sign in using your Google account (if you have one) to save your form and purchase a copy without the PDFAmigo watermark. Forms cost $1.00 for the first page and 50 cents for each additional page, payable through Paypal.
How does PDFAmigo compare to other online PDF Form Builders, like Doculicious or JotForm? Unlike these two services, PDFAmigo won’t host web-based versions of the forms for you or collect the data. That’s all up to you. And at $1.00 per PDF, you might be better off with JotForm, which lets you create unlimited PDF forms.
Doculicious also has a free account option that lets you create 75 PDFs per month. With Doculicious, users can fill in the forms on the computer and get a hard copy of the completed form, while you get a copy of the data. Neither JotForm nor PDFAmigo offer this functionality-you can create fully functional PDF forms, but you can only print completed forms and cannot save them to your computer.
Honestly, I found JotForm’s user interface both more attractive and easier to work with than PDFAmigo’s. However, PDF Amigo did offer more customization options and lets you upload images. So, it would be a good option for you if you want to quickly create a customized PDF form with, say, your company logo on it.
What do you think of PDF Amigo?
Our Rating of PDFAmigo
Categories:web
You can create PDF forms for free at http://www.pdfescape.com (plus you can start with an existing PDF file instead of having to build it from scratch).
Great, thanks for the tip!
New bookmark: Web-Based PDF Creation http://tinyurl.com/yjuvw8f
Even though both tools have their relative merits I would like to highlight a few differences:
- PDFEscape lets you add Text Fields and Check Boxes. PDFAmigo also allows for List Boxes, Combo Boxes and Radio Buttons.
- PDFEscape has limited visual customization options for new form fields. PDFAmigo lets you customize fonts, colors, borders, etc.
- PDFEscape only allows you to edit an existing document. So, save from uploading an empty PDF you cannot start with a blank template and add pages to it as you go.
- PDFAmigo lets you use images in your PDFs.
All in all I think PDFEscape works well if you have a “flat” PDF which you wish to annotate. PDFAmigo works better for those who wish to create a brand new form and customize its look & feel. Both tools can prove useful in the right situation but I don’t think they are quite exact substitutes.