Computer Help and Support

Stinky The Clown

(67,757 posts) Tue Mar 26, 2013, 07:36 PM Mar 2013

Does anyone know Acrobat X 10.1.6? I can not figure out how to flatten a file.

(Cross posted to Macintosh Users)

I often mark up PDFs with handwritten notes, my signature, etc. When saved, all these annotations are individual elements that can be moved, copied, some even edited.

I want to be able to "flatten" them into the underlying file so they are the same as if the file were scanned in. That is to say, so no one can change my notes.

I used to be able to do this on previous versions, when Adobe installed a printer driver and you were able to "print" to PDF. This is no longer possible, as you know. Now we can only save as a PDF. This is true whether you try to print from the program or if you try to print from the standard Mac printer dialogues.

I have tried exporting as an image file and then printing that, but the image degradation is unacceptable.

H.E.L.P ! !

7 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Does anyone know Acrobat X 10.1.6? I can *not* figure out how to flatten a file. (Original Post) Stinky The Clown Mar 2013 OP

pdf printer driver BlueJazz Mar 2013 #1

Search for and install this printer description file. evlbstrd Mar 2013 #2

not sure about the other suggestions (they might work).. Phillip McCleod Mar 2013 #3

Adobe seems to make the wackiest decisions sometimes. Stinky The Clown Mar 2013 #4

yes i'm very much disillusioned. Phillip McCleod Mar 2013 #5

Ugh . . . fixed typos in my reply to you, above. Re: DjVu . . . does that produce a PDF? Stinky The Clown Mar 2013 #6

no unfortunately it does not.. Phillip McCleod Mar 2013 #7

BlueJazz

(25,348 posts)

1. pdf printer driver

Reply to Stinky The Clown (Original post)

Tue Mar 26, 2013, 07:45 PM

Mar 2013

Maybe try downloading another printer driver from another vendor. I've used PDF995 printer driver with Windows - Apple I'm not sure, but there should be some other printer drivers out there that will allow you to "refry" the pdf and lock in your notes.

evlbstrd

(11,205 posts)

2. Search for and install this printer description file.

Reply to Stinky The Clown (Original post)

Tue Mar 26, 2013, 08:04 PM

Mar 2013

ADPDF9.PPD

Phillip McCleod

(1,837 posts)

3. not sure about the other suggestions (they might work)..

Reply to Stinky The Clown (Original post)

Tue Mar 26, 2013, 08:17 PM

Mar 2013

but you can always open in illustrator (or inkscape what have you..) then flatten and save again.

it drove me nuts that between PhotoShop >7 and <CS3 when opening an EPS it no longer asked me to what resolution I wanted to rasterize. it always rasterized to 72dpi. grrrrr... finally they brought it back but by then i'd figured out the gimp.

so i know the frustration of which you speak.

Stinky The Clown

(67,757 posts)

4. Adobe seems to make the wackiest decisions sometimes.

Reply to Phillip McCleod (Reply #3)

Tue Mar 26, 2013, 08:29 PM

Mar 2013

Last edited Tue Mar 26, 2013, 09:03 PM - Edit history (1)

On a Mac, we can make PDFs without it, from the Mac OS, but I actually liked it better when we could just print to PDF. That was Acrobat 9. To flatten, we could either use a -doh! - flatten command or do it ~~was~~ as we printed/~~refrained~~ refried the file. Now . . . . not so much.

Phillip McCleod

(1,837 posts)

5. yes i'm very much disillusioned.

Reply to Stinky The Clown (Reply #4)

Tue Mar 26, 2013, 08:32 PM

Mar 2013

ever hear of DjVu?

there's an open source _everything_ now.

http://www.djvu.org/

Stinky The Clown

(67,757 posts)

6. Ugh . . . fixed typos in my reply to you, above. Re: DjVu . . . does that produce a PDF?

Reply to Phillip McCleod (Reply #5)

Tue Mar 26, 2013, 09:05 PM

Mar 2013

Or is it some other format?

Since I need to send PDFs to clients, it needs to be easy for them.

Phillip McCleod

(1,837 posts)

7. no unfortunately it does not..

Reply to Stinky The Clown (Reply #6)

Tue Mar 26, 2013, 09:15 PM

Mar 2013

PDFs are a proprietary (adobe) format so they're pretty much the only game in town.

just thought it might be of interest to note that there are other in some better portable doc formats starting to come into use. give them a couple more years though. djvu is used by big publishers, academia/sciences, gov't, etc. instead of pdf since it probably gets expensive to license all that adobe crap. these days a lot of tech (heh, and LaTeX) layout software usually exports to any of postscipt, enhanced postscript (eps), pdf or djvu.

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