Remove Overlapping Objects without Converting Full Page to Image?

[SeanHowardCommRoof]

I assemble pdf's into single documents. Lots of these come from product manufacturers, and some of them contain objects that are stacked over each other to resemble the product they are selling. Because of this, scrolling through the pages becomes very slow due to having to wait for Acrobat to draw each layer over and over.

Printing and scanning takes a long time, wastes paper, and either makes the file size too large to send over email, or too low of quality to see any smaller details.

Acrobat XI has a feature called "Remove Hidden Objects", with a part called "Overlapping Objects", which I was hoping would "cut" through the objects to remove all the hidden objects. Technically, it does this, but it also converts the entire page to a single image that I can no longer edit.

Is there a feature like this, but only affects the actual overlapping objects, and doesn't convert the whole page?

Thanks

[Tariq Ahmad]

Hello,

Sorry for the delay in response.

Have you tried printing the pdf file using Adobe PDF printer, it will flatten the whole file or you may try flattening it using this method: Printing complex PDF document using Adobe Acrobat

If you already have found an answer to this query, please update this discussion with your findings.

-Tariq Dar

[Thom Parker]

Have you run the optimizer?  It contains options for simplifying content.

Another route is to look through the PreFlight options, there are lots of document fixups that simplify content, such as the PDF-X and PDF-A conversions.