How to Flatten a architectural drawing PDF so you cannot edit the text

[Hawkeye1227]

Receently the requirements for electronic submittals of drawings and documents to building departments for to obtain a building permit have changed and are now reuquring that the "drawing PDF's" be flattened.  According to the city when a drawing is "flattened" you wond be able to edit the text.  But they also require that the PDF be unlocked with no passord protection.  I used the guide from the Adobe Chat line today that said all you need to do was print the merged docment with Adobe and that would flatten the document.  That did not work.  On line it said to open the document, select PDF Fixups, selelect flatten, the select Analyze and fix. Doing this I get an error message "the dimensions of this page are out-of-range.  Page content might be truncated?  My talent is in architectural drawings and not PDF design and management.  I was told by a city plans examiner today that they use "Blue-Beam" and it is just a simple click.  This cannot be that difficult of a task, ist it??

[Test Screen Name]

Let's look at the last thing. You say it says the dimensions are out of range. You MUST NOT make a PDF more than 200 inches in width or height. If you are doing that, change your working practice.

[JR Boulay]

The Flatten feature can flatten comments and form fields only, so it is useless in this case.

The easier way is to use the Fill & Sign feature of Acrobat DC (Pro or Reader), a signed PDF is not editable and does not requires any password to be opened.

[Amal.]

Hi there

++ Adding on to the suggestion by JR_Boulay

You may use the digital signature (Option available with Adobe Acrobat DC) on the document and select the checkbox 'Lock document after signing' as shown in the screenshot below.

Regards

Amal

[Luke Jennings3]

What is the size of your PDF, as indicated at the bottom left corner of the screen?

I recall an issue (years ago) where the CAD units get incorrectly converted to inches when saving as a PDF. If your PDF is larger than 200", try adjusting the CAD units and re-saving from your CAD program.

To make the text harder to edit, apply a preflight fixup- convert fonts to outlines (this may be what Bluebeam is doing). The Discard hidden layer preflight may make a smaller PDF (in MB).

If it gets rejected by the city, you can try exporting your PDF as a .png (image) from Acrobat with sufficient resolution to keep the type legible, then re-save as a PDF.

[Hawkeye1227]

Thanks for yoru input.  I create a pdf of a CAD drawing so that when the PDF is printed to full size it will be 24"x36".  I purchased Adobe Acrobat Pro DC about a month ago primarilly to address the "flattening" requirements for electronic drawing submittals to the various counties and cities around her for building permit processing.  Prior to using Adobe in order to achieve this task I would have to convert each drawing PDF to a JPEG and then convert that back to a PDF, adn of course this process is very cumbersom when dealing with a large number of drawing sheets.  I was told that Adobe Acrobate Pro DC had a very simple way of accomplishing the same thing.  The submittals require that all teh drawings in the set that are being submitted be merged into one PDF.  I have no idea as to how many inches the PDF is and dont quite understand the dynamics of that?  I am unable to find in Adobe what the size of the PDF is?  I see nothing in the lower right hand corner or anywhere else in the screen?  all I know is that when the PDF is recieved the text boxes through out the PDF cannot be edited, but the reviewers need to be able to opne the PDF and add their comments where ever needed.

Also, in trying to use the new adobe program to convert a CAD drawing to PDF I cannot seem to find out how to keet the PDF drawing from being printe sideways.  I have selected landscape in the settings, but when you select Arch D size prints it always defualts back to sideways?

[Hawkeye1227]

Ok, I find that when I hover over the lower left side of the screen for a moment a size does does appear, thak you for that.  The PDF I opened was one that was merged and has 17 drawings in the set.  The size of each image is indicated to be 36.00 x 24.00 in.  In what direction is the 200" measured?  Is it that you have to use the flattening tool on each single 24x36 drawing PDF and the merge them all into one PDF?  The Adobe service tech told me that I could flatten the merged PDF?

This is a most interesting dilemma!

[Luke Jennings3]

I didn't see your response before I replied.

Each page of a PDF can have a different size, but if they are all around 36 x 24", that should not be a problem. Sometimes CAD files can include many layers and complex vector objects, which can be a challenge for Acrobat to process, the Discard hidden layer content preflight can help simplify the file.

[Luke Jennings3]

If you move your cursor toward the bottom left of your screen, the overall PDF size should appear. You can also go to File> Properties > Description, which will show you the size.

I don't think you can use Acrobat to convert a CAD file to PDF, you would need to save or export a PDF from your CAD program. Adobe Illustrator can open a .dxf file, if a CAD program is not available.

You can combine multiple PDFs by using Tools> Combine files.

You can rotate pages by using Tools> Organize pages. If my suggested preflight profiles work for you (and the city), you can use the Action Wizard to create an Acrobat action that will combine the preflights into one, easy to apply action, that you can apply to one PDF, or a folder of PDFs. 

Try running the Discard hidden layer content profile first, and save the PDF to a new name, does this work or are you getting an error message?

[swapnilsrivastava]

Hi There,

Thanks for reporting the issue here.

You can print using Adobe PDF Printer from WIN or Save As Adobe PDF from MAC hence to flatten the drawing.

Please do let us know, if anything is required from our end.

Regards,

Swapnil Srivastava

[Dov Isaacs]

Sorry, but “refrying a PDF” file by printing to Adobe PDF on Windows or resaving the PDF on MacOS doesn't begin to solve the OP's issue.

[JR Boulay]

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[JR Boulay]

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[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

For better or worse, the term flattening has any number of meanings in terms of PDF files and the content thereof.

(1)    Flattening can refer to combining multiple layers defined in a PDF file into a single layer.

(2)    Flattening can refer to transparency flattening which refers to eliminating any non-opaque objects by converting same into comparable opaque objects. Within Adobe's Acrobat products, flattening typically refers to transparency flattening and nothing else.

(3)    Flattening has also been used to the process of removing “live text” within a PDF file and converting same to outlines or possibly raster images in the misguided belief that this will prevent someone from modifying the PDF file's text content.

My belief is that the “building departments” you are referring to really mean (3). However, anyone, including whatever “Adobe Chat Line” you are referring to who tells you that “printing” the PDF file (presumably to another PDF file, a process known as “refrying a PDF”) is going to somehow “flatten” all text is dead wrong. All that will do is flatten transparency that may convert some text to outlines or rasters if such text is involved in transparency.

If the “building departments” in question will accept text converted to outlines, there is a simple fixup in Acrobat Pro DC's Preflight, Convert fonts to outlines, that will accomplish that in one step. Very easy. It diminishes text viewing and printing quality but not nearly as much as converting text to raster images which really can dramatically clobber viewing and print quality and increase PDF file size.

Ironically, none of these procedures, including those proposed by others in this thread can prevent someone from opening a non-text PDF file in Acrobat and using the edit function to delete or cover the “flattened” text objects, adding new/changed text over the original contents, and then reflattening the document.

The only protection that can begin to work is to password protect the PDF file against changes and then add a password to simply open the PDF file. Unfortunately, the “building departments” don't quite understand this at all.

On behalf of Adobe, I apologize for any misinformation you may have received from any Adobe source.

[Luke Jennings3]

There is a preflight Convert fonts to Outlines, I don't see preflight Convert text to Outlines. Perhaps that was in an older version of Acrobat?

[Dov Isaacs]

You are correct. I should have indicated Convert fonts to outline. I'll correct my response. Thanks.

[metallums18]

Bluebeam Revu does it.  Acrobat Pro versions cannot.  End of excuses or alternate meanings for the term.   This is not a truly correct answer.

The OP's context was architectural drawings.  Not text documents.  Not print design fame documents.  Not books.  The drawings could be Rev 1 of 4 later Rev versions and might be used as base templates for greater drawings or models and cannot have passworded protections added as they will undoubtedly change as the many minds team up to review them and the larger applications they are imported into will not always allow the protections.  A flattened or compiled file that combines text, images, drawing lines, sketched items, or whatever into what essentially acts like a scanned document but accounts for image transparency, retains vector quality on vector items is a must.  Acrobat itself cannot author such a document when adding items at this time.   Add one single image using Acrobat DC Pro to your document and you will never achieve what Bluebeam Revu currently does with one button.  At least not yet. 

I do as a couple others mention here as printing to pdf file.  What one man here also vilified as "refrying".  That's all we can do.   As we aren't just concerned with text as that man was.  We are concerned with the many items within these drawings.

A simple "Acrobat versions cannot accomplish this yet" will do.  Maybe one day we can get a push to get it added to Acrobat and they can call it whatever term other than flatten that they wish.   On behalf of many using Acrobat for both design/print and completely different fields, just make flatten in this other context possible in Acrobat Pro versions, please.  

[JR Boulay]

"Save As Adobe PDF from MAC hence to flatten the drawing"

swapnilsrivastava you should try to do it on your own to find that it doesn't work.
Also, using the poor Apple PDF Services to generate PDF from Acrobat Pro is always a bad idea.

[JR Boulay]

"Save As Adobe PDF from MAC hence to flatten the drawing"

swapnilsrivastava you should try to do it on your own to find that it doesn't work.
Also, using the poor Apple PDF Services to generate PDF from Acrobat Pro is always a bad idea.