Flatten Forms

The Flatten Forms API is a powerful tool designed to lock PDF form field values, making them non-editable, and convert Acroforms and XFA files into standard PDF files for maximum compatibility. This process helps secure the form data and ensures that forms are universally accessible across different platforms and devices.

By using this API, you can preserve the appearance and data integrity of your forms, making them suitable for distribution, archiving, and compliance purposes. This is particularly beneficial for businesses and organizations that need to maintain the integrity of their forms while ensuring they are accessible to all users, regardless of the PDF viewer they use.

Flattening PDF forms offers several key benefits, including the preservation of filled-in form field values and the prevention of further edits, which secures the data and maintains its integrity. This is crucial when forms need to be finalized and shared, ensuring no further modifications.

Flattening also enhances compatibility by converting interactive forms into static PDFs that can be viewed and processed by any PDF reader, eliminating issues with unsupported form types. This process is essential for legal, compliance, and archival purposes, where maintaining the original content and appearance of documents is critical.

The Flatten Forms tool supports a wide range of form types, including Static XFA, Dynamic XFA, and Acroforms. This ensures that all types of PDF forms are correctly processed and converted into standard PDFs with no loss of data or compatibility issues.

This comprehensive support makes pdfRest a reliable choice for organizations dealing with diverse form types in their workflows, providing a seamless solution for managing and processing forms across different departments and use cases.

Flattening eliminates interactive form elements and converts forms into static PDFs, ensuring they are compatible with all PDF viewers and workflows. This is particularly important for Dynamic XFA forms, which are only supported by a limited number of PDF readers. By flattening these forms, you ensure that they can be opened, viewed, and processed without errors or warnings, improving overall compatibility and user experience. This transformation is crucial for organizations that need to distribute forms widely, ensuring that all recipients can access and interact with the documents without technical barriers.

Flattening PDF forms removes compatibility issues caused by interactive form fields, especially with XFA forms, making them easier to process and share. This reduces the risk of errors and ensures the forms are ready for distribution or archiving.

By streamlining the document processing workflow, flattening enhances efficiency and reduces the need for manual intervention. This is particularly beneficial for organizations that handle large volumes of forms, as it allows for faster processing and reduces the potential for human error.

After flattening, the form field data is preserved, but the fields themselves are no longer editable. This prevents unintentional changes and ensures the form data remains intact and secured. The flattened form retains its visual appearance, making it suitable for legal, compliance, or archival purposes. This preservation of data integrity is essential for maintaining the authenticity and reliability of documents, especially in regulated industries where data must remain unchanged.

The Flatten Forms API can handle both Static and Dynamic XFA forms, which are often difficult to work with in certain PDF viewers. Flattening these forms ensures they are converted into standard PDFs, making them universally compatible. This capability is essential for organizations that need to process XFA forms without encountering compatibility issues. By converting XFA forms into a more widely supported format, pdfRest enables seamless integration into existing workflows and systems.

The Flatten Forms API supports PDF files with Acroforms and XFA forms, allowing you to upload and flatten various form types. It processes these forms and converts them into a universally accessible standard PDF format, ensuring compatibility across different platforms and devices. This broad support for different form types makes pdfRest a versatile tool for organizations with diverse document processing needs.

Yes, you can automate the flattening process by integrating the API into your workflows. This saves time and reduces manual intervention, especially when dealing with large numbers of forms. Automation enhances productivity and ensures consistent results across your document processing operations. By automating the flattening process, organizations can improve efficiency and reduce the potential for errors, allowing staff to focus on more strategic tasks.

Dynamic XFA forms are limited in compatibility with many PDF readers. Flattening these forms turns them into static PDFs, ensuring they can be opened, viewed, and processed by any PDF viewer, improving overall compatibility. This transformation eliminates the need for specialized software, making the documents more accessible to a wider audience. By ensuring that all recipients can access and interact with the documents without technical barriers, organizations can improve communication and collaboration.

pdfRest is optimized to handle large PDFs efficiently, ensuring smooth processing without performance degradation. The maximum supported file size for the Cloud API Enterprise plan is 1 GB. Please see our Pricing page for additional file size support information.

The processing time depends on the size and complexity of the PDF form. Generally, the flattening process is quick, but larger files or forms with many fields may take slightly longer. pdfRest is designed to optimize processing times, ensuring efficient handling of your documents. By minimizing processing times, pdfRest helps organizations maintain productivity with quick turnaround.

Yes, flattening forms can help to prepare PDFs for print by removing all interactive elements, ensuring that the form appears exactly as intended in a standard format that is universally compatible with PDF tools and software. For print-ready PDF forms, consider a two-step workflow to flatten forms before converting to PDF/X format.

As a REST API service, pdfRest is compatible with any programming language, framework, or service that supports sending standard http requests.

This flexibility ensures that developers can work within their preferred environments and streamline the integration process. By offering support for a wide range of programming languages, pdfRest enables organizations to leverage their existing technical expertise and resources.

Flattening secures your forms by preventing further edits and locking the data into the document. This ensures that the form remains unchanged, maintaining the integrity of the data for legal, compliance, or archival purposes. By preserving the original content, flattening provides confidence in the reliability and authenticity of your documents. This protection is essential for organizations that need to maintain the accuracy and consistency of their records.

Yes, you can test pdfRest’s Flatten Forms tool by signing up for a free Starter account and using our API Lab. This online interface allows you to upload files, configure parameters, and send API calls directly from your browser. Download the results and review output to ensure pdfRest meets your needs before implementation and deployment.

API Lab also generates code samples automatically for easy integration with your development project. While the free Starter plan includes watermarked output, it provides an excellent opportunity to evaluate the tool's capabilities and see how it can meet your document processing needs before upgrading to a paid plan.

Yes, pdfRest can flatten forms under GDPR compliance. To ensure full compliance, send your API calls to the http://eu-api.pdfrest.com/flattened-forms-pdf endpoint. This ensures that all data processing occurs within the EU, adhering to GDPR data protection regulations. Note that some plans may incur a small fee for GDPR-compliant usage.

By prioritizing data protection and privacy, pdfRest supports organizations in meeting their regulatory obligations and safeguarding sensitive information.

Yes, pdfRest offers self-hosted options for flattening forms. You can explore our PDF Forms Pro Self-Hosted API available on AWS, which allows you to manage your own backend processing infrastructure.

Additionally, our Container API products provide flexible deployment options for running the pdfRest API in your preferred environment, whether on-premises or in the cloud. This flexibility ensures that organizations can choose the deployment model that best aligns with their operational and compliance needs.

Yes, you can flatten PDF forms using pdfRest without writing any code by using our API Lab. This online tool allows you to upload files, choose parameters, and send API calls directly from your browser.

For an even more convenient and efficient workflow, try pdfAssistant.ai for automated form flattening, which provides an intuitive AI chat-based interface for processing PDF tasks using a virtual assistant. This no-code solution is perfect for users who want to streamline their document processing without the need for technical expertise.

Yes, tutorials for flattening PDF forms are available for multiple programming languages:

• C# (.NET)
• JavaScript (NodeJS)
• Python
• PHP
• cURL

These tutorials provide step-by-step guidance on using the API, making it easy to get started and integrate into your workflows. By offering comprehensive educational resources, pdfRest empowers users to fully leverage its capabilities and achieve their document management goals. These resources are invaluable for developers and IT professionals looking to implement efficient and effective document processing solutions.