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Add a Flatten Document Menu Item to Acrobat

By Rick Borstein

I recently did a Digital Signatures eSeminar (you can watch the recording here), and one of the top questions asked was:

How do I flatten a PDF document so my signature stamp cannot be easily removed?

In previous articles (1, 2) I've discussed how to scan in your signature and create a stamp which you can use to "sign" documents.

Once you place the signature on your document, it appears as an annotation in a layer on top of the base document.

This allows you to move or delete the stamp.

However, the recipient of your file can also move or delete your stamp, or print without your stamp showing.

That is worrisome . . .

The solution is to flatten the document before sending it out.

Flattening means to move the stamp information to the main document layer so it will always print and cannot be selected and deleted easily.

Many folks simply print the document to the AdobePDF print driver. However, that process takes several steps.

In this article I'll show you how to download and install a free script that adds two menu items to Acrobat:

Works for Forms, too! The solution here also covers the ability to flatten form fields so that the content cannot be changed.

Read on to learn how to:

• Download the free Flatten Pages script
• Install the Script
• Use the Flatten Pages feature
• Issues and Caveats
• Electronic vs Digital Signatures

Full post as published by Acrobat for Legal Professionals on February 24, 2010 (boomark / email).