Flatten Image Command

Here's a brief article posted by ACP Document Geek:

• https://documentgeek.blogspot.com/2017/08/flattenizer-script-for-adobe-pdfs.html?m=1

And here's a link (also taken from the article above) that explains in great detail the why and how the flattening ability that you're frustrated with works or doesn't works the way it does:

• https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/how-to-quot-flatten-quot-a-pdf-in-adobe-acrobat-x-pro/td-p/4721506
• https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2010/02/24/add-a-flatten-document-menu-item-to-acrobat.html#gs.yyqw41

Unfortunately, there seems to be no easy one click option, but there are ways around it.

Yes, you can save the document as a postscript file. That is the most basic flattening command ever invented since the inception of Adobe Acrobat in the computing industry back in the early 90's. It is also referred to as refrying the document. That said, you may also save as an image, print to PDF, print as image, or use the Export PDF tool,  which by the way, all of these actions in Acrobat will result in flattening to a single layer. Every software in the computing world out there (at a minimum ) knows how to do this.

You can also use the Flattener Preview of the Print Production Tool or use the PDF Fixups feature which will allow the user to  fine tune a custom profile to control how exactly do you need a document to be flattened in order to preserve image quality and other elements.

You may also use JavaScript or even use the Optimizer, so I'm not sure if you're actually posting an inquiry or just complaining about something that you couldn't find yourself in the Adobe Acrobat product.

What does you mean with "flatten image" ?

Hi,

What type of file are you trying to flatten? What created it?

Are you talking about annotations inside Acrobat, as they can be flattened using the this.flattenPages() method from JavaScript OR you can save the PDF using the menu item "File"->"Save As Other"->"Optimised" which opens this dialog and you can choose what you want to update.

If you are talking about Optional Content Groups, then that is something totally different.