# jbarrow/commonforms

CommonForms — open models to auto-detect PDF form fields

Repository: https://github.com/jbarrow/commonforms
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/commonforms
Language: Python
License Family: other
Last push: 2026-06-17T12:25:19+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 65/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 88, release rhythm 58, longevity 25
- inputs: {"age_days": 350, "days_push": 77, "days_rel": 281, "gap_med": 13, "n_releases_24m": 4}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1284, forks 159 (observed 2026-08-28T04:04:14.530204+00:00)

## What it is
CommonForms is a Python package and CLI that uses trained object-detection models (FFDNet-S/L) to automatically detect form fields in a PDF and convert it into a fillable form. It also provides the CommonForms dataset and preprocessing code used to train the models.

## Use cases
- convert a flat pdf into a fillable form
- auto-detect form fields in pdfs
- add text and signature fields to scanned forms
- batch make pdfs fillable from the command line
- train or evaluate form field detection models
- use FFDNet models for form field detection

## When to choose
- you need to make non-interactive PDFs fillable without manual field placement
- you want a CLI or Python API for form field detection
- you need pretrained models or a dataset for form field detection research

## When to avoid
- you only need to fill in PDFs that already have form fields
- you want a lightweight tool — the dependency footprint (torch, transformers) is large
- you need a permissively licensed dependency — the repo has no license

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: machine-learning, pdf, ocr, computer-vision
- domain: pdf, machine-learning, developer-tools, files
- platform: python, cli, cross-platform
- tags: form-field-detection, fillable-forms, object-detection, pdf-forms, ffdnet

## Member repositories
- jbarrow/commonforms (main) score 65

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:14.530204+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T04:56:44.960587+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/jbarrow/commonforms (fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:14.530204+00:00, sha 213238159e4d)
  - registry_pypi: https://pypi.org/pypi/commonforms/json (fetched 2026-08-29T12:12:35.918699+00:00, sha a3f2493f4b2a)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.