Creating Fillable Forms

Carl Shank • October 15, 2023

Creating Fillable Forms — Everyone uses a form, whether it is a doctor's form, or an insurance form, or a credit form or a school registration form. Form creating is both an art and science. You want a form to be readable, convey the required information and be understandable. We also want forms, if they are online, to be fillable, with fields that invite the applicant to simply click and type in the information requested. Three programs that I use to create forms are the Adobe InDesign layout program, Acrobat, and Google Forms. Each has their strengths and weaknesses.


InDesign Form Making — InDesign provides a path in the program for creating forms in their Button and Forms library. This is found in Windows > Interactive > Buttons and Forms which has form elements that you can use in designing your form. You can add simple form elements such as text fields, radio buttons, check boxes or signatures. You can also add actions to submit the form by email or print.


Solid strokes and fills to the form fields, on/off hover states for buttons, check boxes and radio buttons can be added.  You can specify font and font sizes in text input fields. You can then export this simple form to Adobe Acrobat for additional editing. See Adobe's Help Index on forms for more information.


What is not told is that you must actually create the form and then add the buttons and field boxes and so forth. Here a very helpful tool is to use InDesign Form Templates, which professional designers have provided for our use. These are beautifully constructed forms that can be opened in Adobe Illustrator and used in programs like InDesign. I have included four downloaded forms below to show you the capabilities of such designed elements.


The advantages of using a high end program like InDesign are many for form creation. Like any other professional layout program, InDesign has all the bells and whistles that you need to design a form of your liking. Its myriad font selections, color selections, design elements and so forth will help you create an attractive and eye-catching form that is unlike many of the standard line forms you have seen. Many people also use Adobe Illustrator for form creation as well. The Form templates offered by Brand Packs are visually compelling and created for everything from registration forms to medical forms. Note the examples below.


The disadvantages are also to be noted. InDesign and the Forms Templates are not cheap. The InDesign program itself comes usually as part of the package of Creative Cloud from Adobe and costs over $50 per month for a subscription, which is the only way the current InDesign program is available. You cannot buy a current stand-alone InDesign program. The last stand alone program was in the CS series, InDesign CS 6, which is not available from Adobe any more. Form Templates created for Adobe Creative Cloud are also available for a price, brand packs.com offer seventeen outstanding InDesign compatible forms. They are available in the Adobe Stock program for a monthly fee of $30 – $200 per month, which includes not merely forms but all of the Adobe assets. One time users can retrieve five professionally made forms for $50 up to 150 forms and other assets for whopping price of $1,200. This fee is in addition to the regular Creative Cloud program fee. Additionally, extra type styles which may not be available from Adobe or in the default program can be costly, since using these fonts come with licenses for which often you pay a fee.


Acrobat Forms —  One of the most used programs for creating forms is Adobe Acrobat. Editable PDF forms are available using Acrobat to securely secure data from customers and clients, vendors and more. Using Acrobat's "tool bar," fillable form fields, text fields, drop down menus, checkboxes and signature fields are available. You can either download a paper form from your scanner or from a file on your computer. Acrobat then adds fillable form fields which you can then distribute. (See Sample Below)


The steps are fairly easy —

  1. Open Acrobat:
    Click on the “Tools” tab and select “Prepare Form.”
  2. Select a file or scan a document:
    Acrobat will automatically analyze your document and add form fields.
  3. Add new form fields:
    Use the top toolbar and adjust the layout using tools in the right pane.
  4. Save your fillable PDF:
    You can also share it with others or click Distribute to collect responses automatically.

See https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/create-form.html for more help.


However, unlike InDesign's or Illustrator's many layout elements, Acrobat depends on forms that have been already created for those professional touches.


Google Forms — Certainly, one of the easiest and cheapest way to create and use a form is through Google Forms, available at forms.google.com or your Google Drive. Many users have Google Drive enabled on their computers. There are a few Form Templates offered. (See Illustration below).

  1. Step 1: Go to forms.google.com or Google Drive.
  2. Step 2: Select a template.
  3. Step 3: Change the title of your form.
  4. Step 4: Adjust questions and answers.
  5. Step 5: Customize the Google Form theme.
  6. Step 6: Preview your form.

Google notes that you can add a header image and customize the color scheme and fonts used. Google offers this advice — "When you're done, simply click the Send button, and choose to send it via email (either a link to the form or the entire form embedded in an email), copy a link to share manually, or embed the form as HTML on your site. When the responses start trickling in, you can see them in a list of aggregated data or individually, along with a collection of charts appropriate to the question type. If you're a spreadsheet wizard, you can take this data to Google Sheets and look for deeper connections there.


In addition to that Sheets integration, you can also pre-fill a form to save your respondents some time, collaborate with others on your form, and browse a collection of add-ons on the Google Workspace Marketplace. Bonus: if your respondents are Google users, their progress will be saved on any given form for a month, so they can click away and come back to it later." (https://support.google.com/docs/answer/6281888?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop#zippy=%2Ccreate-a-form-from-google-drive)


Takeaways. As an avid InDesign user and  typographer I tend toward using that platform for designing and using forms. Just to note that many of my colleagues use Adobe Illustrator, and that is all fine.  I like the creative freedom, the outstanding visual appeal possible and the end results seen and appreciated. I understand, however, the cost may be prohibitive for some, and busy office professionals may simply want a quick and easy form for their company. Google Forms cannot be beat with Adobe Acrobat coming in a close second. Take a look at the included forms below to get some ideas. If you would like CARE Typography to design your next form, let us know at cshanktype@gmail.com. We would be happy to quote you a price and offer a quick no-hassle turnaround.




Successful Layout & Design

King James Bible Typography

By Carl Shank • April 7, 2026
The King James Bible (KJV), commissioned by King James 1 in 1604 and published in 1611, has been a profound Bible translation and masterpiece of beauty through the ages. It has been one of the most influential English translations of the Bible. Its history combines politics, religion, and literary achievement in early modern England. It has an elevated, poetic style that influenced many later writers. It has been prized for its literary beauty, historical continuity and memorability in public reading and worship (ChatGPT).

Responding to AI and Digital Babylon

By Carl Shank • April 6, 2026
Responding to AI and Digital Babylon H. Carl Shank April 4, 2026 Austin Gravley, a former Social Media Manager of The Gospel Coalition, and now the Director of Youth Ministry at Redeemer Christian Church in Amarillo, TX, is writing a book on AI and the digital revolution taking place. He compares this Digital Babylon and its captivity and its exiles to Christians living under the overwhelming influence of an active anti-Christian developing AI. Piecing together his comments with those of many others on the advancing scene of AI on our lives, several themes come to mind. First, AI is not God. While there are some in the Silicon Valley who might wish or see AI as a unifying, ontological force that can shape or rule our lives — the Super Machine —others remind us that this is only technology. And as advanced as AI is and becomes, God is still sovereignly in control of it and our lives. Jason Thacker, professor of philosophy and ethics at Southern Seminary and Boyce College, writes — “We must engage these issues, rather than respond after their effects are widely felt. But we don’t have to face today or tomorrow with fear. God is sovereign and his Word is sufficient for every good work, so we are able to walk with confidence as we apply his Word to these challenges with wisdom and guided by his Spirit.” ( The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity , Zondervan, 2020) A recent storm that darkened my community and scuttled Internet services reminded me of that. Even AI data centers, growing to over 3,000 in 2025 nationwide, are not immune to power disruptions and total blackouts. AI pundits may claim to have control procedures to keep the Internet and AI running cannot promise it to be so. We need to keep this in mind in the Digital Babylon age, as was needed to be kept in mind by Israel in the Babylonian Empire age in biblical times. Babylon went through many iterations, but will be defeated by God at the end of the day, as noted in Revelation. Digital Babylon will experience the same demise. This is not prediction, just Bible truth. We as believers need to hold on to such truth. Second, AI is still technology. Indeed, advanced and advancing technology, but not human. Matthew Schultz in a recent mereorthodoxy.com article notes— “Technology has existed since the Garden and is an integral component of our cultural mandate. We should also remember that one of the core distinctions between the Creator and his creatures is that we never create matter but merely (!) rearrange it. This becomes clear whether we consider an ancient farmer in Mesopotamia irrigating a plot of soil, a medieval peasant in Northumbria weaving a basket from flax, or a young musician in London taking the raw outputs of machine sound, adjusting its pitch, volume, and length, and incorporating it into a DAW loop. While there are all sorts of important distinctions and qualifications between pre- and post-industrial craft, there is no metaphysical distance between the two.” ( Artificial Intelligence Is A Technology , Feb. 26, 2026). AI may be the harbinger of a new Industrial Age, but though changes will be major and sometimes severe, the human side of the equation cannot be discounted or counted out. Part of my retired status as a pastor and theologian is that of a typographer restoring old type faces and doing a deep dive into the history of type. Two historical typographical truths stand out. Although the Renaissance age brought movable type from Gutenberg and others into the machine age, the typographical flair of those ancient scribes with pen-drawn exquisite type remained a stylistic standard. The second note is that with the Industrial Age, while affecting the quantity and speed of type development and printing, master type craftsmen rebelled against machine driven type for more organic typefaces. This was seen, for instance, in the type movement spawned by William Morris (1834–1896). William Morris was an Arts & Crafts designer who founded the Kelmscott Press (1891), reviving hand craftsmanship in printing. His work influenced the twentieth century private press and type revival movements. Lettering became a vehicle for breaking convention. Led by figures such as Morris, there was a decided reaction against industrialization, seeing machine-made goods as dehumanizing and ugly. Handcraftmanship, honesty in materials and utility fused with beauty made up much of what was called the Arts & Crafts Movement. That movement was rooted in medieval guild ideals and morality in design. (For an expanded history of type development, see “Advances in Typography: A Historical Sketch — Three Parts” in the blogs by CARE Typography, www.caretypography.com , Nov. 8, 2025, Nov. 18, 2025 and Nov. 20, 2025) Third, AI affects everyone everywhere. Austin Gravely, a former Social Media Manager of The Gospel Coalition, raises and answers the query — “’So what?’, you may think. ‘I’m not an Internet technician. I’m not a fan of AI. I’m not planning to change how I use the Internet. Why does any of this matter to me?’ To put it bluntly: you are naive if you think these disruptions won’t directly affect you, or indirectly affect you through the effect they will have on others. If the iPhone, social media, and AI have taught us anything, it is that you are impacted by these events regardless of whether you participate in them or not.” ( The State of the Internet: 2026 , mereorthodoxy.com, March 30, 2026) He goes on to say — “A changing Internet will change you. It will change you in ways you can see and in ways you can’t. It will change those you live with, work with, play with, build with, and fight with. It will change what is possible, probable, permissible, and prohibited in your life, your vocation, your church, your neighborhood, and any other physical space the Internet touches.” I recall my 99 year old mother who passed away a couple of years ago in a nursing facility. She was one of those survivors of the Great Depression and World War Two who dismissed the first moon landing and had her flat screen TV removed from her room for fear the government was watching. She lasted for nine years in the same private room in a modern nursing center. She was attended by doctors and nurses and staff who used AI on their computers and other care devices. She even had a modern digital phone removed from her room and refused to learn it. While she personally rebelled against her AI driven machine age, she could not escape those who used such technology for her care. We cannot isolate ourselves from AI and its advancing development, no matter how isolated we try to be. Fourth, AI can be either a blessing or a curse. Again, Matthew Schultz notes — “Our task is not to develop a unique theology of AI but to catechize our members into a people who can wield this technology without becoming captive to its internal logic. Like alcohol, artificial intelligence will become a test of character, a dangerous good that divides the foolish from the wise.” He says “Yet the greatest danger is both more pervasive and less obvious: AI is much more likely to be deployed as a multiplicative layer that allows ever more efficient micro-targeting of digital services and physical products by industries that already profit from compulsive behavior. The advent of hyper-personalized, real-time engagement strategies will require legislative safeguards, especially if AI leads to video advertisements generated in real time for an exhaustively mapped individual profile.” We must seek to “humanize” AI and employ it “humanly.” We must resist the phenomenological bent toward unbelief in AI development and pressures. We must once again learn to think critically and pervasively and biblically about AI. Our young people must be taught prescriptive critical thinking practices, rather than unwittingly and ignorantly giving in to what their phones and computers spit out. Church and ministry pastors must pastor rather than let AI bots plan, prepare and even give their sermons. We must learn to smartly negotiate with the “Magnificent Seven”— Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia and Tesla — rather than blindly following their lead. Convenience and speed must not be allowed to overtake and overcome careful, sustained and critical thinking and acting. “To give language to this change, we must take the best of Christian thinking regarding the social and political imaginary and apply it to the economic imaginary of life under the glowing shores of Digital Babylon, and that kind of work cannot be done with quick hot takes. It will take slow, deep, and thoughtful meditation to apply the riches of Christian thought to making sense of the companies that got us here and where they are taking us.” (Austin Gravley, The State of The Internet: 2026 ) I am both excited and wary of AI. I have learned to be much more cautious about social media and the videos and photos and information they give. Much of it has been and is being AI produced and tweaked. Spammers use AI technology to wrest thousands of dollars from unsuspecting senior citizens. Schools are requiring students to turn off their cell phones or “bag” them until after school hours because of the insidious nature of AI generated stuff. I value more and more of a face-to-face approach in teaching and learning and mentoring others. And we must adopt a state of “believing is seeing” rather than a non-Christian scientifically sanctioned “seeing is believing” approach to truth and justice.
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