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Keep your files secure yet accessible once they’ve been finalized. Flatten PDFs on Canva so you can share them across various platforms while keeping their contents safe from unauthorized changes.
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Maintain the integrity of your business records and contracts while documenting them. Flatten PDFs online with Canva to prevent data manipulation or extraction and signature alteration—especially important when multiple users are accessing the same files.
Safekeep forms from tampering
Guarantee the credibility of the forms and surveys(opens in a new tab or window) you distribute. Use Canva to flatten PDFs before printing and emailing questionnaires. This ensures that respondents can’t change text fields and can only fill out the portions they need to answer.
Print files in their final versions without a hitch
Keep files not only consistent and error-free but also viewable across all platforms. Use Canva’s PDF flattener so they have a more simplified document structure and are quicker to share and open, no matter what device the recipient is using.
How to flatten a PDF
Frequently Asked Questions
To flatten a PDF means to merge all of a document’s layers, including annotations, into a single layer, simplifying its structure. This way, the content is presented as a single, uneditable image, and people who view the file won’t be able to edit its elements.
PDFs are flattened to protect the documents’ layouts and keep their contents from being modified or tampered with. Aside from important business paperwork, layouts for design projects are also usually flattened to keep them secure from unauthorized edits.
Since to flatten a PDF basically means simplifying its structure into a single layer, documents are then easier to store, share, and view on different devices and platforms.
While flattening and compressing a PDF may sound similar, they are two different processes with distinct purposes.
To flatten a PDF means merging a document’s layers into a single, flat, and uneditable layer, while compressing a PDF optimizes its different elements to make the file size smaller. Images may be downscaled, non-crucial metadata may be removed, and more efficient coding methods may be applied during file compression. However, the document’s original structure remains intact.
Unlike a flattened PDF, the interactive elements within a compressed PDF will still work. That means it will continue to have interactive and, therefore, modifiable elements.
Therefore, compressing PDFs is best for submitting documents that are still subject to review or approval, while flattening PDFs are best done after files have been completed and finalized.
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