Can not flatten header, footer, or watermark?

[JoniTu]

Flatten Comments seems to have no effect on header, footer, or watermark. How to flatten those so they are not editable on the saved document?

[Patrick-Tracker Supp]

Hello JoniTu,

Thank you for the post and welcome to our forums-

Flattening comments will not affect headers/footers or water marks because they are not comments. You will notice that the edit Comments tool will not make changes to them.

You are likely using the edit content tool. This has the ability to edit comments as part of the base content of a PDF.
If you wish for the headers and footers to not be editable, you will need to place security on the documents.

For more information on placing security on documents, please see the following KB: https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowled ... nge-Editor

I hope this helps!

[JoniTu]

Thank you for the very prompt reply. In my application, I need to flatten an entire document for subsequent submission, review and annotation (red lines) by others. I do not wish to lock the document with a security feature, only to assure that the page headers, etc., don't get inadvertently altered. Other programs (Foxit for example) will flatten all annotations, including headers. Is there any way for PDF-Xchange to provide this functionality?

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello JoniTu,

You say "In my application" - are you using our end user or developer products?

Regards,
Stefan

[JoniTu]

No, by application I mean "work flow". I need to make a document as flat as possible but permit associates to mark-up, using something like PDF Expert on an iPad.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hi JoniTu,

The only way I can think of "flattening" everything on a page is to make it an image.
So you can export your current file to images, then create a new document from those images - the headers and footers will be there, but no one will be able to touch them.

Regards,
Stefan

[JoniTu]

Please consider this as a future option. The extra steps you suggest shouldn't be necessary. It's easier to just open the document in Foxit PhantonPDF and flatten it, which does flatten these items. Of course, I'd rather not have to use (or endorse) two editors. And speaking of Foxit, it also permits dropping in signatures without using a certificate. There are times when a work-flow calls for a signature on a page which doesn't require authentication. It would just be nice to have a feature of dropping in a signature as a graphic element without dealing with a certificate, and the ability to copy/paste it like a graphic - such as when the document is going direct to hardcopy and doesn't require certification. Thanks.

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

Watermarks, Headers&Footers are not generated as comments (annotations) by the Editor. They are a part of page(s) content, so, they are always flattened.

[risto basic]

Please consider this as a future option. The extra steps you suggest shouldn't be necessary. It's easier to just open the document in Foxit PhantonPDF and flatten it, which does flatten these items. Of course, I'd rather not have to use (or endorse) two editors. And speaking of Foxit, it also permits dropping in signatures without using a certificate. There are times when a work-flow calls for a signature on a page which doesn't require authentication. It would just be nice to have a feature of dropping in a signature as a graphic element without dealing with a certificate, and the ability to copy/paste it like a graphic - such as when the document is going direct to hardcopy and doesn't require certification. Thanks.

Very necessary!

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello JoniTu,

Can you please send us a sample of an original document (the one you want to flatten), and the results when you flatten it with our products and with another one for comparison? If the desired result is not immediately visible - please also include any necessary notes, and we would be happy to assist you further!

Regards,
Stefan

[Mathew]

One workaround I've found for this is to print the document to a pdf. This is much better than making an image, because text stays as text, and file size does not bloat significantly. You could use "PDF-Xchange Lite" that came free when buying Editor, but I use pdfForge's "PDFCreator" because it makes smaller files and has a good interface to combine pdf's from different applications while printing -- watch out for the installer on the PDFCreator, though, because if you are not very careful, it installs extra garbage with a very deceptive "license agreement" page.

I've also found that Mac "preview" does not show up the headers and footers created with Editor, so I have to do this if sending to people who may use that pdf viewer.

[BobM]

One workaround I've found for this is to print the document to a pdf. This is much better than making an image, because text stays as text, and file size does not bloat significantly...

Unfortunately, this method appears to convert the document text above a watermark to an embedded image. Since the effect is dependant on the size of the watermark, scaling it with the page will increase the area of the image. Also, the text in this image is not searchable.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the posts - as Patrick mentioned before, we do not place headers and footers as annotations, so flattening will not work. Flattening will essentially make an annotation a part of the base content so that i.e. typewriter text would become base content text; stamps would be XFORM objects, etc.

As Stefan mentioned above, the only to make the document text in-editable, would be to make it an image. If you need it to be selectable and searchable, then you would need to OCR the document afterwards (Document --> OCR Pages).

As for Foxit being able to do this, I'm not particularly familiar with their products, but I suspect that they place the header/footer as some kind of annotation, hence why they can flatten it. I also suspect that any PDF editor would be able to edit these headers/footers, unless they are made into an image.

It would just be nice to have a feature of dropping in a signature as a graphic element without dealing with a certificate, and the ability to copy/paste it like a graphic - such as when the document is going direct to hardcopy and doesn't require certification. Thanks.

This can already be done by creating a stamp of the signature. Please see our knowledgebase here:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowled ... Stamp-Tool
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowled ... ture-stamp

Please be aware that flattening has a pretty specific definition and flattening cannot touch items that are already a part of the base content.

Thanks,