The Flatten feature merges interactive forms and any other comments in a PDF document. It is especially useful at the end of a review because you can be assured the information would not be edited, moved, or deleted by others.

Note: flattening cannot be undone and all the undo operations are removed.

To flatten a PDF

Upon flatting, annotations and other items are removed from the panels they used to be displayed in and fused with the document so that no one will be able to select or modify them.

  1. Open a PDF file and choose Advanced > Document Processing > Flatten .

  2. In the Flatten dialog box, select the types of annotation and other items you wish to flatten and click OK:

  • Draw. It indicates the annotations placed by drawing tools. Once the document is flattened, all the drawing objects are removed from the Comment panel and can no longer be selected or modified.

  • Attach. All the attachments in the document are displayed in the Comment panel. Once the document is flattened, they are removed from the Comment panel and can no longer be opened. Meanwhile, the file attachment icons remain at where they were but lose their availability. Note that files attached by Document > Navigation > Attachments are not affected.

  • Textbox. All textbox annotations created by the Text Box tool are displayed in the Comment panel. Once the document is flattened, they are removed from the Comment panel and can no longer be modified, resized, or moved. The text previously entered in the textbox can still be read but cannot be edited.

  • Note. Notes placed by the Note tool are displayed in the Comment panel. Once the document is flattened, they are removed from the Comment panel and can no longer be opened and edited. The sticky note icons remain at where they were but lose their availability.

  • Stamp. Stamps are placed by the Stamps tool and can be moved and resized with the Select tool. All stamps in the document are displayed in the Comment panel. Once the document is flattened, they are removed from the Comment panel. The stamps remain visible but can no longer be modified or moved.

  • Layer. Layers are created in Layer panel. Once the document is flattened, all layers are transformed as document objects and merged into the document. The Layers panel also provides Flatten layers command by which you can merge all layers into the document. See Merge or Flatten layers.

  • Text Markup. Once the document is flattened, highlights, cross-out, underline and other text markups remain visible but can no longer be deleted or selected.

  • Form. All form fields are no longer interactive.

  • 3D. All 3D models created by Multimedia are shown in document pane and displayed in the Model Tree panel. After you add a 3D object, click on it or right-click and choose Activate 3D with the Hand tool to activate it. However, once the document is flattened, they are removed from the Model Tree panel. The 3D objects remain visible but can no longer be activated and edited.

  • Movie. Movie clips are placed by Multimedia. Once the document is flattened, all movie clips in your document cannot be run or edited anymore.

  • Redaction. Flattening the file preserves the completed redaction (A) (redacted content is permanently removed), while the content only marked for redaction remains viable and searchable (B).

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