PDF Cooker wanted... Let me explain

[Edvard]

OK, here's the situation.

I work at a small shop where a great deal of what we do is printing house plans on a large copy machine.
Typically, I get HPGL2 plot files, PDF's, TIF's, etc. that I then print for submittal to contractors, permit officials, etc.

Here's the sticky: Sometimes I get PDF's that are created with AutoCAD or something that preserves all the vector info and layering, which crashes my print system if there is too much to interpret. When I try to print with Adobe reader, it pops up a dialog that says "Flattening - " with a progress bar.

These are the only files that give me trouble, and I wonder if there is:
1- some sort of software (preferably freeware) or
2- a ghostscript process method
to "pre-flatten" these stupid things before they bog my machine.
Any suggestions?

[cthorpe]

Looks like PDFTK might be able to help you, and it's open source:

http://www.accesspdf.com/pdftk/

The command might be something like this:

[Select]

pdftk borkedpdf.pdf output fixedpdf.pdf flatten

It's a command line program, so no screenshots.

[Edvard]

Yeah, I use PDFTK all the time, totally rocks... but If I recall correctly, 'flatten' doesn't work like it would seem. The PDFTK documentation states that the "flatten" directive is meant to fill in form fields, not flatten layers.

[flatten]
         Use this option to merge an input PDF's interactive form   fields
         (and their data) with the PDF's pages. Only one input PDF may be
         given. Sometimes used with the fill_form operation.

I'll try again and report back, but I believe I have already tried this.

[cthorpe]

This page has a javascript file that will give you menu options in Adobe Reader for flattening...

http://www.linetype....vice/cad/flatten.htm

Flattening PDF Annotations

PDF files can contain two different types of data -- graphics and annotations.  Graphics are static images -- text, vector drawings, or raster images.  Annotations are interactive objects that have a graphic associated with them.  Stamps, redline comments, sticky notes, digital signatures, and form fields are all examples of annotations.

...

Although the interactive features of annotations can be very useful in some situations, at other times it may be desirable to disable this interactivity and turn the annotation into a simple graphic that cannot be changed or deleted so easily.  This is called "flattening" the annotation.

Carl