What are office forms?

When a student seeks admission to a college, or a university or borrows a book from a library or applies for a bus concession ticket, a form has to be filled in. What are office forms? According to Leffingwell, “Forms are printed sheets of paper or card-board used to collect and transmit information”.

In the words of Denyer, “A form is a printed piece of paper or card on which entries are usually made against marked headings.” In other words, a form is a standardized record used to accumulate and transmit information for reference purposes. They are the basic tools of all office work.

Examples of forms are the factory orders, requisition, bills, quotations, orders, etc. An office form bears the fixed or constant data and provides spaces for variable data or information. That is, the information which is already in the form is known as fixed or static data and the information which will be filled in the form is known as variable data.

The fixed information is printed on the form. The person using the form need not write the fixed data again and again, but he has to fill the variable data in the form. Since office work constitutes various routine operations, the use of forms reduces the monotony of repeatedly writing various items already printed on the forms.

Thus clerical staff find it easy in filling the required information in appropriate columns, instead of writing down the whole matter. Therefore, a form can be defined as a printed piece of paper, where entries (filling) are made for a predetermined purpose. Generally, the form is printed or cyclostyled for future use. It may be filled in ink or with a typewriter.