Question 1

What does flattening do?

Accepted Answer

Flattening converts interactive elements — form fields, annotations, comments, signatures — into permanent, non-editable content baked into the page. The final PDF looks identical but the fields can no longer be changed.

Question 2

Why would I flatten a PDF?

Accepted Answer

To lock form submissions so recipients cannot alter your answers, to preserve signatures and stamps, to make a PDF consistent across viewers (some viewers render forms differently), or to reduce file size by removing interactive overhead.

Question 3

Does this remove print and copy restrictions?

Accepted Answer

If you choose the Rasterize option, yes — the result is a fresh PDF built from images of each page, which has no restrictions. This only works on PDFs you can already open. Use only on documents you have the right to modify.

Question 4

What is the difference between Keep Text and Rasterize?

Accepted Answer

Keep Text preserves searchable, selectable text while flattening forms and annotations (faster, smaller output, text-searchable). Rasterize converts each page to an image (larger file, not searchable, but guarantees everything is burned in and strips all restrictions).

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