How to Create a Questionnaire PDF: Step-by-step Guide & Templates.

How to make a questionnaire PDF: Step-by-step.

Ready to design your own questionnaire PDF? Follow this easy step-by-step:

1. Define your purpose.

Before you begin, you need to determine the purpose of your questionnaire. There are many reasons why might want to write a questionnaire PDF. Here’s some questionnaire examples to spark inspiration:

• Strengths and difficulties questionnaire PDF.
• Customer satisfaction questionnaire PDF.
• Board effectiveness review questionnaire PDF.
• Logo, brand or website design questionnaire PDF.
• Employee engagement scale questionnaire PDF.
• Customer loyalty survey/questionnaire PDF.
• Client onboarding questionnaire PDF.

Once you’ve chosen the purpose of your questionnaire, you can answer some questions to get a better idea of the intent. For example, ask yourself:

• Who is the audience?
• What data do you need?
• How will the results be used?

These answers should act as both a starting point and a north star to steer you during the questionnaire creation process.

3. Design your questionnaire.

You may have the best questions, but if your questionnaire template or PDF isn’t user-friendly, then you may not get the results you need. Layout and user experience (UX) are important tools to ensure your questionnaire PDF is legible, easy to navigate, and engaging.

Try to consider the following:

• Section grouping. Questionnaire section groupings can sort your survey questions into blocks. For example, if you’re looking for responses from specific demographics, early questions could direct certain age groups to a designated part of the questionnaire based on your needs.
• White space and readability. White space directly impacts questionnaire readability. While it may sound technical, it’s the practice of leaving enough space to break up patches of dense text and aid clarity. It can also make a survey appear less daunting.
• Font size recommendations. Font-sizing (and fonts themselves) aren’t just about aesthetics – they can have a noticeable impact on readability. Aim for 12pt – 14pt font on printed surveys, and 10pt – 12pt on digital ones. For older adults, you may want to consider 14pt as standard. Aim for clear, sans-serif fonts such as Arial or Calibri for better readability. Adequate line spacing (1.5) also makes chunks of text easier to digest.
• Branding (logo, colours). You can add colours, logos, and fonts to increase trust and add your brand imagery to your questionnaire. However, it’s important not to overwhelm your questionnaire PDF to the point it becomes illegible. If you apply branding, ensure it’s consistent, recognisable, and not distracting.

Here are some key points that can serve as a checklist to help ensure your checklist is, at a baseline, legible:

• Clear headings. Headings should be easily identifiable, stand out from questions or answer text, and denote what each section will focus on. Aim to make them informative, concise, and unbiased.
• Consistent spacing. Ensure that the kerning (the space between letters), line spacing, and white space between paragraphs, sections, or headings are consistent.
• Logical flow. If a questionnaire sends people back and forth, or if the questions seem thrown in a nonsensical order, it can cause additional cognitive load for the reader. This could reduce completion rates or confuse your respondents.

For more insights on accessible PDF design, explore our WCAG checklist for formatting PDFs and documents.

4. Create your questionnaire.

Once you’ve done your research, chosen the right questions, and defined your questionnaire's purpose, you can start creating. Designing a professional-grade questionnaire can be daunting, but with Adobe Acrobat, it’s easy.

1. Launch Adobe Acrobat, then select “Prepare Form” from the “Tools” menu.
2. Alternatively, use the Adobe Acrobat fill & sign tool online for free.
3. Open a blank page, select a file (including one from other sources like Word), or scan a document.
4. Select “Auto-detect form field” for automatic form field detection. Then, add or edit fields as required for interactive elements like check boxes. You can right-click a field and select “Properties” to customise it.
5. Once you’re happy, save the document and click “Distribute” to share your questionnaire.

Alternatively, try Adobe Express for another way to create a questionnaire:

1. Visit Adobe Express, and choose from a range of helpful, fully customisable questionnaire PDF templates.
2. Use the in-depth customisation options to add your logo, colours, and fonts to ensure your questionnaire PDF stays on brand.
3. Add your questions, answers, and headings to the questionnaire. You can amend fonts, spacing, and colour as needed.
4. Add any visual elements you want to include, from design aspects to data visualisation.
5. Save and share your survey or download it ready for printing.

Questionnaire PDF use cases.

Questionnaires are a convenient tool for gathering data from market analysis to scientific data or even for customer satisfaction results. They’re a cost-effective way to gather large amounts of relevant information, and a standardised method of data collection.

Here are some of the different types of questionnaires you might use, and the type of questions you may include with them:

Customer questionnaires.

Customer questionnaires are an essential tool for gathering relevant customer feedback for a variety of reasons. These could include:

• Post-purchase surveys. E.g., “How satisfied are you with the service we provided?”, on a rating scale.
• Customer support evaluations. E.g., “How well did our customer service team resolve your issue?”, on a rating scale, or through a multiple-choice question.
• Product feedback. E.g., “If there is anything you could change about the product, what would it be and why?”, as an open-ended question.
• Website experience/UX analysis. E.g., “Were you able to find what you were looking for on our online store?”, including a “yes/no” selection, with room to expand.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys. E.g., “Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague?”, with a scale going from “wouldn’t recommend” to “would recommend”.

HR and employee questionnaires.

HR and employee questionnaire PDFs are great tools for collating data on either workplace culture, operations and efficiency, or engagement. Examples include:

• Employee engagement/satisfaction questionnaires. E.g., “Do you feel recognised for your work at [Company]?”, with a Likert scale or rating system.
• Pulse questionnaires. E.g., a sliding scale on employees' feelings about things like work-life balance, stress, and so on.
• Exit questionnaires. E.g., “What are your reasons for leaving?”, with an answer box.
• Onboarding questionnaires. E.g., “The orientation process prepared me for my job role well…”, with a Likert scale.

Business and team effectiveness questionnaires.

Business and team effectiveness questionnaires help your employees to set goals, share pain points, give feedback on the direction of the business, or share any day-to-day issues.

• Goal-setting questionnaires (SMART goals). E.g., “What do I want to accomplish?” “How will I know I have met my goal?”, using a range of suitable answers.
• Process pain points questionnaires. E.g., “I find it difficult to do my job day to day…”, with a scale, and an option to expand.
• Goal-setting behaviour questionnaires. E.g., “I focus on my own improvement, rather than comparing myself to others,” with a Likert scale.
• Team effectiveness questionnaires. E.g., “Do you feel comfortable sharing your ideas with your team?”, with either multiple choice or sliding scale answers.
• Management effectiveness questionnaires. E.g., “Does your manager give you constructive and actionable feedback?”, with a multiple-choice answer.

Creative and project-based questionnaires.

Creative and project-based questionnaire PDFs can help employees or creative partners to trigger creative thinking, generate engagement, or reflect on their work for future projects.

• Creative project briefing questionnaire. E.g., “What are three words you would hope clients use to describe the final output of this project?”, with an open-ended answer box.
• Project reflection and evaluation questionnaire. E.g., “What was the most rewarding, and most frustrating, moment of this project?”, with an open-ended answer box.
• Interactive/visual questionnaires. E.g., “Choose three images that represent the vibe you want from the new office space…”, with a multiple-choice answer, and the ability to expand on that answer.