Flatten PDF — Bake Annotations & Forms
Drop one or more PDFs and the tool re-renders every page to a raster image, then wraps the images back into a fresh PDF. Annotations, comments, sticky notes, form fields, and any other editable overlays get baked in — what you see is what every viewer sees, exactly. Output is larger than the source but consistent across viewers.
Drop your PDF files here
Multiple files allowed · output is image-based
When to use this tool
Useful before sharing a "final" PDF — sticky notes and comments stop being editable, form fields stop being fillable, and any tool that strips or re-flows annotations can't accidentally remove your content. Useful too when one viewer renders annotations differently from another; flattening makes everyone see the same thing.
Step by step
- Drop the PDFs. Each becomes a re-rasterised copy of itself.
- Pick DPI. 150 dpi is the sweet spot for screen + occasional print; 300 dpi is press-ready.
- Pick format. JPEG produces the smallest files; PNG preserves text crispness better.
- Click "Flatten & download". Output is
name-flat.pdf.
FAQ
Will the output have selectable text?
No — every page becomes an image. If you need a searchable text layer back, run OCR PDF on the flattened file.
How much larger will it be?
Depends on source content and DPI. A text-heavy 10-page PDF can grow 5–10× at 150 dpi JPEG. PDFs that were already image-only barely change.
Are my files uploaded?
Never — this runs entirely in your browser via pdf.js + pdf-lib. See the privacy policy.