Print-Ready PDF
Check a PDF before you print it, flatten its forms and comments, and remove its scripts. No upload, no signup.
Files stay on your device How it works
Drop files here, paste, or
PDF · up to 10 files, 100 MB each
Your files
Your file is ready
How to get a PDF ready to print
- Choose up to 10 PDFs, each up to 100 MB, or drop them on the box.
- Leave “Remove links too” ticked, unless the copy will also be read on screen.
- Press Check and prepare. Each PDF comes back with a text report; download both.
What it changes
- Form fields are flattened: the answers become part of the page, so they print as you see them and can’t be changed by accident.
- Comments and markups that have a drawn look, such as highlights, stamps, notes and drawings, are drawn into the page, so they print too.
- Scripts are removed: JavaScript, and actions that open another file or program. The report says how many there were.
- Links are removed if the box is ticked. On paper they do nothing.
What the report checks
- Page sizes, named when they match a common paper (A4, Letter, Legal, Tabloid, A3 or A5), with a note when the pages aren’t all one size.
- Bleed: whether any page has artwork set to run past its trim edge.
- Fonts not embedded, by name. A printer uses a similar font in place of each one, which can change how the text looks.
- Pictures: each one’s resolution at the size it’s printed, in dots per inch, flagged under 300 dpi and under 150 dpi, where pictures may look soft; ask your printer what resolution it needs. Its colors too: RGB, CMYK or gray.
What it doesn’t do
It doesn’t convert colors: RGB pictures stay RGB, and the printer converts them to its inks. It doesn’t add a bleed area or crop marks, and it doesn’t make a PDF/X file, the print-ready format some print shops ask for. Those are best set when the PDF is exported from the app that made it. The report lists what it found, so you know what to ask about.
Good to know
The copy keeps its name with “-print-ready” added, and the report is a text file with “-print-report” added. A digitally signed PDF shows as no longer valid after any change, this one included. Redaction marks that haven’t been applied are left alone, because they hide nothing yet; Redact PDF removes content for good. To make a black-and-white copy first, use Grayscale PDF.