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Participating Frequently
November 7, 2025
Answered

Filling forms not wotking on smartphone

  • November 7, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 308 views

Hello,


Having some issues with the mobil application and filling of forms. I can't seem to fill the textboxes, it's like they weren't there at all. I can navigate to the Fill and Sign and then create new text basically everywhere but to use the predefined fields seems impossible. On PC (win11 24h2) it works fine and I can edit all forms on in the pdf.

Same for all PDFs I've tried. Anyone have anya ideas regarding this?
I'm on an Android v16 and using Adobe Acrobat v 25.10.1.41618 (free version)


Thankful for what help or insights I can get.

Correct answer S_S

Managed to get a generic pdf out of the system today. Hope you can help shed some light on the situation.


Hi @christoffer_4850,

 

Hope you are doing well. Thanks for sharing a sample file.

 

The entire comment below is based on the observation from the shared file only:

The file isn't exactly designed as a form to be filled out online, but rather to be printed and filled out manually.

 

This is the sole reason why Web Browsers and Acrobat Reader for mobile are unable to capture the form fields, as none are specified on the document.

Acrobat/Reader for desktop, on the other hand, uses smart sensing of form fields, which allows it to detect form fields and enable you to fill them in, using the Fill & Sign tool.

 

In normal scenarios, when it comes to a simple form, the app should automatically allow users to fill in the fields without switching tools.

 

Hope this clarifies your concern.

 

Note: This observation is strictly restricted to the file you shared. The files you work with might have completely different dynamics, and the scenarios can differ.


Regards,
Souvik.

2 replies

Thom Parker
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 7, 2025

Don't navigate to Fill and Sign.  That option is for filling forms that do not have form fields. (Adobe is quite good at naming things so that they have an obvious meaning, NOT).  

 

 

 

Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often
Participating Frequently
November 10, 2025

Hi Thom,

Thanks for your reply. If not from there where would you suggest? Please feel free to treat me like a 8 year old explaining since I can't figure it out for my self it seems. 😄

How I thought it would work:
- Start the app.
- Navigate to and open pdf
- Click in editable fields in pdf
- Done!

Sadly nothing happend.

Thom Parker
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 10, 2025
quote

- Start the app.
- Navigate to and open pdf
- Click in editable fields in pdf
- Done!

By @christoffer_4850

That is exactly how it is supposed to work.  So I did a little testing, and I can in fact, edit forms on my Android phone with the mobile Acrobat Reader.  However, if the PDF was saved to the cloud by creating a shared link, the PDF could not be edited until a copy was created.  But if it was saved to the Adobe Cloud directly, the field could be edited. So, there is some dependency on how the PDF is made available to the mobile app. I don't know if this is the same issue you're seeing. How are the PDFs being sent to the mobile device?

 

As for transferring just the data, Yes, that is possible, and there is a wide variety of ways to do it.  How its doen specifically depends on the reqired workflow. 

 

Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often
Amal.
Community Manager
Community Manager
November 7, 2025

Hi there 

 

Hope you are doing well and thank you for sharing such a detailed description of the issue. 

 

Have you started experiencing this issue recently, or was it occurring earlier as well?

 

Would you mind sharing the sample PDF file and a small video recording of the steps you are taking and the issue as it occurs so we can try to reproduce it at our end and isolate the issue for the fix.

 

~Amal

Participating Frequently
November 10, 2025

Hi Amal,

To  my knowledge we haven't tried using fillable pdfs on our smartphones earlier we've been stuck with pen and paper.
This was an attempt to change a process to something a bit more "modern". However, I seem to fail in both convincing myself of the smoothness of using a phone or tablet for filling in the documents or acctually doing it at all.

Is it possible to send the requested information in to Adobe outside of this forum? Otherwise I'll see if I can upload a pdf sample or video here.