Acrobat and PDF software solutions

Flattening and Removing Annotations from PDF pages

Mapsoft Flattener plugin for Adobe® Acrobat®

An Adobe® Acrobat® plug-in that performs the following functions:

  • Remove markup and other annotations.
  • Flatten Signatures back into the main PDF file to stop them being changed.
  • Flatten Form fields after they have been filled to stop them being changed.
  • Maintain the integrity of user comments.
  • Put flattened annotations onto a separate layer so that the document underneath can still be read.

Many courts and legal organisations use Flattener to maintain the integrity of legal documents. This may be as simple as the electronic signature of a Judge to the maintaining of comments without the risk of them being modified at a later stage.

Flattener also allows extraneous interactive elements, such as bookmarks and movies, plus any unwanted mark-up, to be removed from your PDF files. It can also be used to flatten remaining mark-up and interactive elements into your document. This can have a significant impact on the size of your PDF file.

Not only are your documents smaller, but by flattening mark-up into your PDF documents, you can also ensure that mark-up is always available for viewing (and printing) even from PDA's and third party viewers.

And new enhancements added to V1.6 of Flattener ensure that the original content of a PDF file is never hidden by the flattened mark-up. (This is because the new version of Flattener allows you to flatten mark-up to a separate layer.)

Of course, once mark-up and form data have been flattened into the main document content, they can't be changed. and by flattening mark-up to a separate layer you have the extra peace of mind of knowing who added what and when to your document.

Flattener plug-in for Adobe® Acrobat® main window

All mark-up, interactive elements and form data can be removed from a PDF file. All mark-up and forms can be flattened into a PDF file and most interactive elements, with the exception of bookmarks, articles, embedded thumbnails and links can all be flattened into PDF files.

A tryout version of the product is available.