Does one fill out a form or does one fill in a form? I've gotten different answers from the people I've asked. Google search results: fill in a form — 14,200,000 fill out a form — 7,000,000
word choice - "Fill out a form" or "fill in a form" - English Language ...
The distinction between fill out and fill in is rather ambiguous. Generally speaking, in the US, "fill out" means to "complete" the form -- supply all applicable information. "Fill in" means to put specific data in a specific place. Eg, "fill in your Social Security" number. But, as I said, this distinction is not especially strong, and the context should be taken into account to hopefully ...
Not quite - you fill out a form by filling in your information; on the other hand, the individual boxes can also be filled in. So it's "fill out" for the whole form; "fill in" for the individual fields and for the information that goes in them. "Filling out" can also be used in a human-developmental sense; a grandmother might say of her granddaughter whom she hadn't seen in a long time "My ...
Fill in would describe a hole in the ground that is filled to capacity with native material, thereby ceasing to be a hole. In the same sense you would say I filled in the crack with caulk, thereby eliminating the crack. I believe fill in and fill out can be used interchangeably in regards to a form or document, most likely regional preferences.
In other words, if you are filling out a form and the date section, for instance, is pre-populated with MM/DD/YYYY, you know the owner of the form wants the date to be filled out with an American date format. Or in some instances, the form might be pre-populated with the entire form pre-filled out with a generic name and address such as: