Articles on: Support & Troubleshooting

What is a Flattened PDF?

A flattened PDF is a file where the text, images, and any layered content have been merged into a single static image. The text is still visible, but it's no longer recognizable as text — so no PDF app, Scriptation included, can read it.

Flattening usually happens when:

A document is scanned rather than exported;
Some watermarking tools flatten the PDF as part of stamping the watermark in;
A PDF is exported with "flatten" turned on (sometimes the default in older or unusual export tools).

Why It Matters in Scriptation

Scriptation features that depend on text recognition will not work on a flattened PDF, including:

Highlight, Underline, Squiggle, and Strikethrough;
Auto-Highlighting (character names, dialogue, scene headings);
Note Transfer between revisions;
Search.

This is a limitation of the file itself — not Scriptation. The same flattened file will behave the same way in Adobe Acrobat, Preview, or any other PDF app.

How to Check If Your PDF Is Flattened

The fastest test is to try to highlight a line of text:

Open the script in Scriptation;
Tap the Highlight tool in the Annotation Toolbar;

Try to drag across a line of text.

If Highlight grabs the text cleanly: your PDF is not flattened — you're good to go.
If Highlight can't find any text (or only catches a rectangular block): your PDF is flattened.

📝 NOTE: A flattened PDF will also typically have a strange look when you zoom in very close — the text edges get pixelated like an image, instead of staying crisp like vector text.

What to Do About a Flattened PDF

Once a PDF is flattened, there's no way to "un-flatten" it — the original text data is gone. The fix has to come from whoever created the file:

If the script came from a production office, ask them to re-export the PDF with flattening turned off. Sharing this article with them often helps;
If you're the one creating the PDF (Final Draft, Adobe, etc.), check your export settings — most tools default to non-flattened, but watermark steps sometimes flip it;
If the file is a scan, you'll need a non-scanned version from the source.

For more on how watermarks and flattening interact, see How does Scriptation handle watermarks?.

What's Next

How does Scriptation handle watermarks?
Why aren't the Annotation tools recognizing text in my script?
Auto-Highlighting or Character Names not working correctly
How does Scriptation work with Final Draft?

Updated on: 26/06/2026

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