How to Flatten a PDF: Lock Forms and Annotations
Flattening turns form fields and annotations into permanent page content. Here is how to do it free in your browser, and what to expect afterwards.
What flattening does
A fillable PDF keeps its form fields and annotations as separate objects that can be edited. Flattening bakes them into the page so what you see is fixed and looks the same in every viewer.
How to flatten a PDF
Open the Flatten PDF tool, drop in your file, choose a quality level (Standard, High or Very high) and click Flatten and Download. The work happens in your browser and the file is not uploaded.
The trade-offs
Each page is saved as an image, so the text is no longer selectable or searchable and the file can get larger. A higher quality level gives sharper pages and a bigger file.
Fixing the side effects
Run the flattened PDF through OCR PDF to add searchable text back, and through Compress PDF if the file is too big to send.
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