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I want to print text documents to PDF but have the resulting text document be 'flat' i.e. it will not be possible to select any text in the pdf, the pdf will be as if it is an image.

is this possible, if so how? Even if I have to use another open source tool to be able to do so.

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  • It is likely to be possible, but may I ask why you want this? Creating a PDF file that is a bitmap and not text is going to be so much larger in filesize, which essentially is a big waste of space and is going to be hard to print if it has many pages.
    – LPChip
    Jun 9, 2014 at 15:38
  • @LPChip It is a document we want printed to pdf that will have for basic security measures the ability of not having select able text. Thus it will be the same as scanning in a printed copy, just not having to use an actual scanner. It is a requirement from my manager to scan them in currently, but if we can bypass this and just print them as images it will save a lot of time.
    – Letholdrus
    Jun 9, 2014 at 15:41
  • The PDFCreator Security page has a clue, but no "answer": pdfforge.org/content/security
    – Kinnectus
    Jun 9, 2014 at 15:45

1 Answer 1

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Unfortunately, PDFCreator no longer seems to support this.

I have just installed 1.9.3 to test it and regardless of wether I select or unselect the "Allow users to select text" option in settings - Adobe Acrobat can still select and copy the text into a Notepad document. This is the same with and without an owner password unfortunately and is also the same with all 3 levels of encryption... disappointing!

FYI, running Acrobat 11 Reader, PDF Creator 1.9.3, Win7 Office 2013 setup for this test.

For trying alternatives - This site lists several options for installing a PDF distiller which will allow you to print a flat PDF, although beware that converting to images as part of building a PDF will increase the file size a lot.

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