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I'm creating a PDF using iTextSharp and it contains some fillable form fields. What I need, is to somehow set it up so that when those form fields are filled in and the resulting PDF is saved (in one of the commercially-available PDF readers like Adobe's Reader), I need those form fields to be fixed text (no longer editable).

Is there any way to do this?

Betty Crokker
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  • If I understand you correctly what you are looking for is called "form flattening", see [this](http://stackoverflow.com/a/27067449/231316) – Chris Haas Sep 30 '15 at 20:39

2 Answers2

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As a comment suggests, this sounds like "flattening the document".

The issue with that process is that it is not available in (Adobe) Reader; it would require Acrobat, or server-side help.

On the other hand, some mobile PDF viewers do actually offer flattening when saving.

The workaround for Reader is to set the fields to read-only when saving the document. You would do this in the willSave Document Action by looping through the fields and setting them to readonly.

Max Wyss
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Simply Print your document as PDF. This will flatten the file.

For this
1. Install Adobe PDF Printer or CutePDF or some similar tool.
2. From your document. Select File -> Print.
3. Select Printer as the tool you installed in Step 1.
4. Your document will be a flattened, non-editable PDF now.

ElevatedLyf
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