Merge or flatten layers

[community_help]

This question was posted in response to the following article: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/acrobat/pro/using/WS58a04a822e3e50102bd615109794195ff-7c58.w.html

[Guest]

Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro - I want to flatten or merge layers. The help says "Click the Layer Button". Well WHERE IS IT OR WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE??? I get so frustrated that the help says something like that and doesn't give any clue where it is or what it looks like. A search for Layer Button doesn't help either. I've been turning toolbars on and off and searching for an hour to try and find the elusive Layer Button. Frankly I think your help files are just horrible.

[Bernd Alheit · Accepted solution]

View > Navigation Panels > Layers

[Dave Merchant]

No need to go anywhere near the menus - it's on the sidebar:

You can control which panels are available by right-clicking the sidebar.

[geek-girl-]

Thank you for the clarification!

I agree with jrt-tn that the embedded help is lacking in visual clues.

[Guest]

in Acrobat Pro XI I found the layers button finally, but it's greyed out-- I have a stamp and text boxes-- are they not layers? If not, how else to flatten without printing to pdf--or is that the only way, as cumbersome as it is?

[Test Screen Name]

They may or may not be on layers. Everything in a PDF can be on a layer potentially.

Confusingly, flattening in a PDF can be at least three different things. Flattening layers is really nothing but removing the names of layers. Then there is flattening transparency, and flattening comments.

[George_Johnson]

For a simple way of flattening annotations (which includes form fields), you can use this handy free JavaScript-based tool: http://www.uvsar.com/projects/acrobat/flattener/

[djh591]

Can this be scripted with javascript via a button trigger? I would like to flatten layers. You can do it from the panel easily and I would think you could do it from a button as you can "execute menu item" for most of the navigation.

[try67]

Yes, it can be done using the "Flatten Layers" Preflight Profile, like this:

var oProfile = Preflight.getProfileByName("Flatten Layers");
if (oProfile != undefined)
    this.preflight(oProfile);

[Guest]

try67-

I've added the above script to a button but had no luck.  I'm a newbie so I don't fully understand all of it.  Can you translate the script so that I can determine what modification I need to make?  I'm unsure of what oProfile means exactly and the .getProfileByName.  Is "Flatten Layers" the profile name that already exists in acrobat?

Thanks,

Jason

[try67]

Don't worry about what oProfile means. You just need to create the "Flatten Layers" Preflight Profile and then it should work.

Create a new profile and then add to it the following Fixup command: Discard hidden layer content and flatten visible layers.

Save the profile as "Flatten Layers" and then the code should work.

[Guest]

This was very helpful.  I didn't realize that creating the profile was easily done through the preflight tool nor that the "Fixup" command was a component of the tool.  The code worked perfectly, thank you.