Making an editable PDF Form non-editable (a shortcut)

Thanks for your suggestions. You should also consider flattening a form if you want a non-editable copy; because the permissions password is not always respected by third-party PDF applications (for some people the form will remain editable, depending on what software they're using).

Flattening a form can be done in several ways in Acrobat: you can run a script - this.flattenPages() - or print the PDF back to PDF (aka refrying), or use the Sanitize tool in Acrobat X. It also strips out hidden content associated with the form (button actions, field calculation scripts, etc.) so provides additional data protection. Sanitize is the heavy-duty option of the three; it will remove all hidden content, leaving only what you see on the page.

One correction to your workflow - the Save a Copy menu item is not intended for creating a duplicate of a normal form, it's only available if the  form has been rights-extended and it serves to remove the extension certificate from the PDF (allowing full editing in Acrobat again). As your client is working in Acrobat they don't need a rights-extended version in the first place, and working with a normal form will make things simpler for them. In Acrobat X Pro you could create them a custom Action which automatically flattens the file and saves a duplicate, so they don't accidentally overwrite the original.

Man I wish there was a like button on this. Thanks.

Try the "Was this helpful?"

If I understand correctly, the task is to take an editable PDF form and make it "static" - completely uneditable.

If that's the case, then instead of saving the file, choose Print, Select Adobe PDF as your printer and give it a new file name when prompted.

The newly created file will not have any form capability whatsoever.

Oh ... and make sure in the properties of any buttons you have on the form, make sure that you have selected "visible, but not printed".  That way your "non-form" doesn't look like a form!

Flattening a form is more than just making it uneditible.

There is the need for users to combine multiple returned form into one PDF and the password protection approach does not resolve the larger issue. Yes one would need to remove the password protection but when the forms are combined, then like named form fields will assume a common value. With use the "flattenPages" method for a PDF document, one can convert the form fields into the context of the PDF or placing the value of the form fields into the PDF and removing the form fields. Once this is done, the PDFs can be combined without losing the individual responses.

Flattening a PDF can also convert comments to the context of the PDF and prevent them from being edited or easily changed.

Making a PDF form with fillable forms static or flat

Open it in Photoshop and save it as PDF

trying to open in photoshop results in a request for some password.

No matter what you want to do, if you need to export to another format, open in a different program, edit, or combine PDFs into one file you need to remove the password protection. If you do not no Adobe product will open a secured PDF.

Photoshop is a very poor editor except for images of non-text material.

What an absurd feature to be missing. It is somebody else's form. I don't have the password. I just want to have a pdf document of the form as I filled it out. And many places that want pdfs don't want scanned pdfs.

This is easily done, but not when the security policy that is applied to the file prevents it.

What would be the point of having a security policy if it's not enforced?

The owner took the time to apply protection for reasons only known to them. You might consider contacting them about either getting the password or being provided with a non-protected form.

You might want to discuss with the creator as to why they do not want to openly share all the content within the form.

It is understandable somebody would not want their form altered. But it does not make sense to prevent someone from saving a form filled out as long as that disables any further manipulation. If some one can print it out and scan it into pdf the end result is the same except for the file sized and perhaps the quality of appearance.

Well, if the author of the form wants to they can prevent you from printing it as well... Whether it makes sense or not is up to them.

If you want to make your fields non-editable the best way to do it is to digitally sign the file, by the way.

Right, a government body is going change a form for me. It would probably take weeks or months trying to identify an appropriate person to talk to, and it would take a commitee and petitions to get it considered. I don't know what is meant by all the content within the form, I just want it saved as I filled it out. If it can be printed, it does not make sense to prevent it from being saved that way. Looking around the internet this concern has popped up often. At least here there was someone with enough knowledge to understand it can't be done. Thanks.

Any filled out form that can be printed out, should be able to be saved. It does not make sense not to be able to.
If someone does not want it printed, that's another story. Of course a person could usually take a screen shot of it anyway.

Are you unable to save it at all? From your description it seemed the issue was that you wanted to save it in an uneditable way. The two things are quite different.

Also, you never mentioned what application (including exact version) you're using.

Yes, you are right, technically I can save the form filled out, but upon opening it is still editable. It is not saved in the sense of done document which can be added to other pdf files.  xipro

If signing is allowed, try digitally signing the file.

Nope, the functions were not active. Interesting thought though.

I'm needing the exact opposite of this. I made a fillable form to send to clients for ad approval. Now when I open up the original document, I'm unable to fill it in. HELP!

I had the same issue. I wanted to make a document uneditable witout having to use the password feature. Doing that, i could leave the option to be able to insert or extract some pages. Some client need to include our report to their document. You cannot do that with a password unless giving it to our client. So... Whats the purpose of having a password at that point! And we cannot begin to manage different password for different clients. Nonsense.

So i turn to the preflight option and notice i could check the box "vectorize text". Great, thats what i did. It basicly render the page as if it was scan.

But, after that i opened the new document in Acrobat pro to make sure it was not editable.... SURPRISE! I discovered that Acrobat ALSO have an OCR feature built-in that works great. It detected the text automaticly, the font type, and make an editable copy of it again! hahaha! Back to the beginning. That leave no option to make a document uneditable UNLESS you use the password feature.

For my form, i use a script i found on the internet. It flatten the document. BUT flattening a form does not mean converting it to be non-editable. Same issue..

Using digital certificates can be used to detect any changes to the PDF. These digital certificates are uses as part of global e-commerce and  meet the legal requirements in many countries and comply with the UCC in the U.S. It will not prevent editing b but it will detect any change and allow a role back to a prior version of the form.

Reading this discussion thread has been interesting & somewhat helpful, but I'm still unsure of some things. My customer wants to be able to make a PDF form available for download/use, but to also make a saved version stop working (i.e. no longer be editable &/or savable) at some point (like when a newer version is available, or possibly after some fixed period of time, e.g. 6 months). Also, since there is a chance the end-user may not always have web connectivity, the goal would be to pop up a warning that form could not be verified as current, versus disabling it. I'm an experienced developer (in Java & JavaScript), but haven't done much with PDFs before, so I'm still trying to understand what can be done when, & how... Thanks in advance for any (& all) help offered!

Using a set date to show a warning, and/or disable the form fields, and/or closing the file is possible.

However, contacting a web-server to see if a new version is available is not.

Also, there are many ways the user can get around this restriction (such as turning off JS, or changing the system date).

Thanks for the quick response! It doesn't have to be air-tight or bulletproof, just make them A) informed, and B) inconvenienced (to 'encourage' them to stop inconveniencing the receiver of their outdated submitted forms!)...

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I want readers to be able to print a PDF, but not be able to edit or copy it. Is there a way to do this? Even if I change the security settings to allow printing in high resolution, no reader can print the document. It seems like an all or nothing situation when an author should be able to choose different options with the security settings and have them actually work. I want people to be able to have limited access, rather than no access at all. I have a tight deadline today for a document I had sent yesterday via e-mall, thinking everything was fine, until readers contacted me complaining about how they can't print the document. Any ideas? I appreciate your help in advance! Thanks!

I was able to override the standard restrictions to customize what should be protected specifically by doing one extra step. Using the password I chose to protect the document, I was able to change the security settings to enable printing, but nothing else. It would be far easier and just as efficient to check off the restrictions we want individually, then just save the document security settings with the chosen password. But at least the problem is resolved.

The password is required because if the PDF didn't have a password, then anyone who opened the PDF, including your end user that you're trying to restrict, could remove the restrictions. Essentially, the password unlocks access to the PDF's security settings.

And that's different from the other password, which opens the PDF itself.