All tools Sign, fill and mark up
Flatten the forms and drawings of a PDF
Filled-in fields can be changed by whoever opens the file, and drawings are comments that other apps can move or delete. Flattening makes both ordinary page content: they look the same, and nobody can change them.
Yes. Flatten PDF is one of the everyday tools, free forever, with no account and no watermark. Pricing
How to do it
- Open your PDF and fill it in or draw on it.
- Open Document properties (the command key and I), then The downloaded file, and turn on Lock filled-in forms or Make drawings part of the page. Press Save.
- Press Download.
You do not have to take our word for it
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Watch the network
The "Nothing is uploaded" button in the app opens a list of every other site the page has contacted since you opened it, and how often, taken from the browser's own record. Your browser's developer tools show every request, this site's own included.
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Pull the plug
Once the app has loaded, turn off your network and keep working. Text recognition, the document converter and the handwriting fonts work offline too after their first use.
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Redaction that removes
A page with something blacked out is saved as a picture of itself, so the text under the box is gone, and every redacted page is checked before the file is saved.
Questions
- Can I change a flattened form later?
- Not in the downloaded file, where what was typed is part of the page. Your stitch here keeps the fields: change them and download again.
- What about comments the file came with?
- Drawing those into the pages, or leaving them out, is a tool of its own.
- Is it free?
- Yes. Flatten PDF is one of the everyday tools, free forever, with no account and no watermark.