Find a form

To be able to fill in and save a PDF form, download and then open the form using the free Adobe Reader

 Download means to save the file to your computing device for retrieval with software installed on your device.

1. Right click or Control+Click (Mac users) on the download link and choose Save link as or Download Linked File as (Mac users) in a folder that you will easily find on your computer.
2. Launch Adobe Reader.
3. Browse to the folder where you saved the file, and open it from within Adobe Reader. You can now fill and save your PDF form.

You may be able to enable the automatic download of PDF files to your computer.

Select your preferred browser from the list below:

Printing PDF forms:

Many forms have a print button included. There may be more than 1 print button in some forms. Each of the print buttons is configured to print a specific page or range of pages. Using other commands to reach the print function is not recommended. If you have clicked a configured print button, do not alter the "Pages to Print" information.

When the Print Dialog box appears, you should see a section titled Page Sizing and Handling. We recommend that you select "Actual size" and ensure the checkbox for "Choose paper source by PDF page size" is selected. This allows the software to print the pages as they are designed to be printed.

Completing dynamic (PDF-XFA) forms:

In Adobe Reader you should see a coloured information bar directly above the form. On the coloured bar, there is a button labelled "Highlight Existing Fields". It is highly recommended that you press the button so that fields are highlighted. This will enable you to easily see where the data portion of fields is located. It will also add a coloured outline to mandatory fields.

When working through a form, we recommend that you tab from 1 field to the next to have the fullest benefit of the built-in functionality.

Dates – most date fields will have a date picker calendar associated to the field which is accessed from the drop down arrow or by pressing the keyboard arrow keys. To quickly choose dates that are not in the current calendar, you may click the month and year headings.

You may also type the date into date fields; you do not need to type the dashes between the date components. Date fields in most forms are formatted to YYYY-MM-DD.

Many forms include helpful advice in "hover help". In order to view the help, you must hover your mouse over the field until it displays. It will not display very long, so you may need to move your mouse away from the field and then hover again to redisplay the help. If the help is complex, it will also be displayed in text format within the form.

Drop down lists – where possible we have developed our lists in alphabetical order and uppercase letters. To access the list begin typing in uppercase letters. You may also access the list with the keyboard arrow keys.

Note: Not all Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) forms accept digital signatures at this time.

Follow these steps:

1. install Adobe Reader 10 or higher to your device
2. download and save the form you wish to complete to your device
3. create a Digital ID
4. sign the form using a Digital ID

Some forms contain a button which permits you to send the form by email. The form is sent using whatever email service or software you have configured on your computer. If you are using a web mail service (vs. email client software) and have not configured your email service to function with "mail to" links, the button may not function. You may save your file, and send the file as an attachment using whatever functionality your computer configuration and email provider supplies.

Note: do not email forms which contain credit card information.