Runs on your device · Your file never leaves your device.
A filled-in form that still shows editable boxes, a signed document whose stamp can be dragged away, a file a portal rejects because it contains form fields — flattening fixes all three. Choose what to flatten and the tool tells you exactly what changes.
“Form fields only” writes each field’s value permanently into the page and removes the field. The text stays text — selectable, searchable, sharp at any zoom — except a value in a non-Latin script that the form never drew, which is placed as a picture of the text; the file barely changes size. This is the right choice for almost every filled form.
“Everything” renders each page as a picture at 150, 200 or 300 DPI and rebuilds the PDF from those images. Fields, comments, stamps, layers and links are all baked in and cannot be changed or extracted — but the text turns into pixels, so it is no longer selectable or searchable, and the file usually gets bigger. The page shows the size before and after so you can decide.
Not for: Keeping text selectable while also fixing comments and stamps — that needs the image option, and images have no text layer; run PDF OCR on the result if you need one back.
The resolution sets how many pixels each page gets. An A4 page becomes 1240 × 1754 pixels at 150 DPI, 1654 × 2339 at 200 DPI and 2480 × 3508 at 300 DPI. 150 is enough for reading on screen, 200 is the starting setting and a middle ground, and 300 suits small print, fine lines, or a file you plan to run through /pdf-ocr later.
JPEG pages are saved at quality 85 and keep the file smaller, which suits scans and photographs. PNG keeps every pixel exactly, so thin text and lines stay crisp, but pages with photographs grow much larger. Each page image is limited to about 30 million pixels so that a phone can handle it. At 300 DPI this lowers the resolution of pages of A2 size and larger, and the finished message then gives the lower figure for those pages.
Everything builds a new file from pictures of the pages. Each page keeps its size and comes out the way it is shown on screen, with any rotation built in. The new file does not carry the original's title, author, bookmarks or attached files, and it adds no document properties of its own.
Most forms store a ready-drawn appearance for each filled field, and that appearance is fixed exactly as it looks, as real text. A field saved without one is drawn first. Latin text is drawn as text in Helvetica. Text the built-in font cannot draw, in any non-Latin script, is drawn by your browser with its own fonts, right to left where needed, and placed as a sharp picture of the text, so that field alone is not selectable afterwards.
An empty signature box becomes empty space, and a field that no page shows, left behind when pages were removed by another program, is dropped, since nothing of it was visible.
Both options write a new file, so a digital signature in the PDF no longer validates afterwards. If a document has to be flattened and digitally signed, flatten it first and sign it afterwards.
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