Flatten to Image PDF — How to Step-by-step guide for Flatten to Image PDF. Open tool · How-to · Privacy How to use Flatten to Image PDF Choose one PDF to flatten. Every page will be rendered to pixels and re-embedded as an image. Select DPI: 150 (good for screen sharing, ~0.3-0.8MB/page), 200 (print-quality, ~0.5-1.5MB/page), 300 (archival, ~1-3MB/page). Select format: PNG (lossless, larger) or JPEG (lossy, smaller). For text-heavy pages, JPEG at 85% quality is usually indistinguishable. Run flatten. Each page is rendered via PDF.js, drawn to a canvas, and exported. Progress shows per-page status. Download the output and verify visually. Text is intentionally non-selectable — the entire page is now a single image. Tips 150 DPI is sufficient for screen viewing and email sharing. Only use 200+ if the document will be printed. JPEG at 85% quality produces files roughly 3x smaller than PNG with no visible difference at normal zoom. Use PNG only when pixel-perfect reproduction matters. Flatten is the nuclear option for metadata removal. It destroys: fonts (preventing font fingerprinting), forms (preventing data extraction), JavaScript (preventing tracking), layers (preventing hidden content), EXIF in embedded images, and all PDF structure. What remains is visual content only. Output file size depends heavily on page content. Text-only pages compress well (~0.3MB at 150 DPI JPEG). Full-color photos expand significantly (~1-2MB per page). For maximum privacy, chain: Paranoid Scrub → Flatten → Compress. The scrub removes metadata, flatten destroys structure, compress reduces the inflated file size. If quota is reached, wait for month reset or upgrade for unlimited usage. What this does not protect Text becomes non-selectable. Recipients cannot copy-paste, search, or index the text. If they need searchable text, they would need to OCR the result. Output file size is almost always larger than the original for text-heavy documents. A 500KB text PDF may become 3-5MB after flatten at 150 DPI. 200-page cap exists because each page requires ~50-100MB of RAM for canvas rendering. For longer documents, split first and flatten sections. Transparent elements and blend modes may render differently than in specialized PDF viewers. Always verify the output. It does not replace legal, compliance, or incident-response workflows.