Show HN: Fill Paper and PDF Forms Online | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Fill Paper and PDF Forms Online

form.ac

38 pointssamadmin24 comments

It's amazing that osx/macOS preview is still leaps and bounds ahead of standard viewers on other systems.

I can fill out forms, draw signatures and print to paper or PDF without installing new software or go looking for a web service. I just open the file and if it looks like it should be filled out, I fill it out.

Agreed. And I use HelloSign when I need someone else to sign it. The combo of both works perfectly for me. I cannot remember the last time I printed a PDF and scanned it back it.

Thanks for the feedback. Preview is a great option for mac users but I still find it awkward for text in boxes - account numbers, for example. I'm surprised Apple hasn't added a check mark annotate option. Not everyone knows the option-v trick.

I tried yours out and it's definitely superior - I'll be using this in the future for non-secure PDFs. If there is any way to do this offline I'd probably pay for an application bundle version.

Thanks, glad to hear we've added something. I'm working on a full client-side version which will run completely offline (including generation). It will be a while away though. Send an email to support@form.ac if you'd like a notification if and when it's ready.

Hi HN, I built form.ac because I hate filling in paper forms (especially if I'm expected to scan and email them somewhere) also it is the basis of a service we provide concrete companies.

The key differences between form.ac and all the other pdf filling solutions out there are: You can photo and fill a paper form; I've focused on speed of filling - no frills just the tools to get the job done; It works well on tablets (not so good on phones); You can add photos, draw on forms and sign forms with your own signature.

I'm really looking forward to your comments - good and bad. Thanks!

The idea is nice. For feedback I'd say the domain name and the design of the site both don't feel secure, so I would have a tough time wanting to use the service. Things that would make it seem more serious / secure:

- Use .com domain

- Better site design

- Paid tiers with free trial

- Intercom or equivalent for support

Thanks for checking it out and the feedback. I really appreciate it. The site design is a bit rubbish. It's really just a placeholder so I could get something launched.

I'm not familiar with intercom but I'll take a look - thanks for the tip.

The paid service will be a B2B service which is more about process management thank just form filling. That's a while away yet though.

I'm really interested in your comment around the .com domain. Perhaps being from NZ we're more relaxed about domain names but I thought with all the new gtlds it wasn't so important any more. Good to know that a .com domain is still important to some.

My main concern with this kind of service is that most of the times I fill out a form it has personal information which I don't want to risk leaking somewhere which is why I prefer local apps that don't transmit over the internet.

It's a valid concern which is why form.ac data is stored locally and is only transferred to generate the form and is then erased from the server. I think it should be possible to do it all client side with a modern browser but I haven't had a chance to do a proof of concept of that yet.

It's also worth considering what you do after you've filled the form locally. Do you then email it somewhere? What does the receiving organisation do with it? Unfortunately there are potential security pitfalls in many parts of the process.

Do you think PDFjs could be extended to write new text inside the PDF, all client side? At the moment I’m only aware of PDFBox from Apache to do this, but that’s server side JAVA...

Yes PDFjs is what we are looking at for a full client side version. However we've had issues with larger pdf's/images and localstorage limits.

I would be interested to know which app you prefer and if you found the form.ac interface easier to use than your local apps or if you really found no advantage with it?

Not sure about the person you replied to but Preview on macOS has done this sort of thing for fucking years, and it stores/reads my digital signature (ie a vector of my actual signature) to/from keychain.

I never understood the market for web apps like this until I realised Windows must not have this out of the box (presumably?)

I recently had to edit a PDF on my work computer (which run Windows 10) and it was quite cumbersome to do compared to OS X. I finally managed to do it by installing Libreoffice Draw.

I trust form.ac would have been an easier option that that?

Definitely!

Thanks. It seems like preview is the go to option for mac users. For me it was missing a couple of features but I'm also looking towards a mobile solution for users on tablets.

The markup feature on iOS is essentially the same toolset.

Demo does not work for me (Chrome W10); the move/resize doesn't work at all.

Thanks very much for the heads up. Tested it with Edge on W10 but not Chrome (sorry), will get that sorted.

Thanks again for spotting this one. All sorted now - move and resize both working correctly on Chrome W10.

Really love this.

How can I pay you to use this? I want this to be around for the long haul!

I'm really pleased you like it - thanks for the nice comment. And generally I'm not one to turn down money but we're not looking at a B2C business model at this stage so hoping to keep the form filling side of it always free.

Feel free to drop us an email at support@form.ac and if we ever have to turn off the service I'd be happy to show you how you can set up your own for free on Heroku (or on a local machine if you're familiar with rails).

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