How to "flatten" a pdf in Adobe Acrobat X Pro

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
December 30, 2012
12 replies
797347 views

Is there a feature in Adobe Acrobat X Pro similar to that in Bluebeam that allows the user to "flatten" the pdf? What this means is that images, text boxes and other additions to the pdf become seamlessly integrated into the pdf, guaranteeing they will display on other users' computers and when printed.

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D

Delightful_shape157F

Participating Frequently

I'm a complete noob. Can you do this in Acrobat Pro 8? I have created several forms, but I need to lock down the results once they've been filled in so that the contents can't be changed. Will locking the forms down when signing do it?

G

George_Johnson

Inspiring

It's an option in Preflight, PDF Optimizer (Discard Objects > Flatten form fields) , and JavaScript (doc.flattenPages). The following free tool uses JavaScript: http://www.uvsar.com/projects/acrobat/flattener/

J

jmt111Author

Inspiring

It's not a available in Adobe Acrobat Pro X?

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

This is my situation:

I have a signature I want to add to my document. It is a png file.
With some printers, for some reason the signature does not print. This is true when the signature is added to the pdf via Bluebeam or via Acrobat.
In Bluebeam, the solution I found was to flatten the pdf. Flattening the pdf caused the signature to become “part” of the file in the sense that when I would click the signature, it would no longer get a border around it as it did before flattening; rather, the whole pdf would get selected. Moreover, the signature would now print whereas prior to flattening, it would not.
Now that I am in Acrobat, I am looking for a similar solution: something that will cause my signature to be “integrated” into the pdf such that it will print and not be left apart. If this is not called “flattening” in Acrobat as in Bluebeam then perhaps there is some other similar name/ tool.

The real complication in Acrobat is that "flattening" refers to at least three different things.

* Flattening transparency

* Flattening layers

* Flattening form fields and comments (annotations)

Since a signature is a comment or a form field, it sounds as if you want the last of these. One way to approach this is the preflight option described above. Have you tried it (Analyse and Fix is the button, yes).

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