Flatten Transparencies for Improved Print Performance

Transparencies are fantastic for expressing rich, visual experiences in a PDF document. Unfortunately, that richness can be a hindrance when it comes time to print if your raster image processor (RIP) does not support handling transparencies or is slow in compositing the transparencies into page content.

One option to increase RIP speeds is to flatten transparent objects before printing.

Transparency flattening is the process of removing translucent elements of a PDF page and replacing them with non-translucent elements. This necessitates a very complex heuristic that traverses page content, identifying each region and classifying each differently based on its content. More than simply removing the transparent elements, it makes decisions about how that content should be presented without it. As artwork becomes more complex, so does the flattening process and the result

pdfRest’s Flatten Transparencies API Tool is built with Adobe technology offering the same unparalleled color management and rendering the engines trusted by enterprises worldwide.

Choose the quality setting that fits your requirements:

• low – ideal for proofing
• medium – best for desktop printing
• high - ideal for final press output

With pdfRest, you can afford to work with the gold-standard quality you deserve.

Always free to get started, only pay when your needs start to scale.

Code Example: High Quality   |   Load this into API Lab↗

    curl -X POST "https://api.pdfrest.com/flattened-transparencies-pdf" \ 
        -H "Accept: application/json" \ 
        -H "Content-Type: multipart/form-data" \
        -H "Api-Key: xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx" \
        -F "file=@PATH_TO_FILE/pdfrest.pdf" \ 
        -F "output=pdfRest_flattened_transparencies" \ 
        -F "quality=high" \
        

Flatten Transparencies