Adobe Print as PDF

ej-mccoll wrote:

No, saving as a PDF doesn’t do what I want which is why I posted my question.

But you said above:

When you "Save As PDF", the properties of the file is still the same. Like if you made a fillable form in Adobe, when you go and "Save As PDF", it still saves the file as a fillable form.

Are you saying you don't want the form to save as a fillable PDF? That could be my point of confusion. Open the file with Preview instead of Adobe. I think you should be able to do what you want from there.

The Mac version of Acrobat does not support direct printing to PDF (File > Print > PDF > Save as PDF). It only saves to PDF via File > Save or File > Save As. This is especially frustrating with fillable forms, as you discovered.

This problem existed in the old Mac CS versions of Acrobat as well as the current DC versions.

I think this is anomalous behavior on a Mac but it appears to be the way Adobe designed Acrobat to work on Macs.

This has been an issue for years now. I solved it for my users by installing VipRiser, which creates a virtual PDF printer that you can then print to from within Acrobat Pro ... no need to reopen the file in Preview.

I just successfully tested it on an M1 Mac running Big Sur, but haven't had a chance to try it on Monterey.

https://onflapp.github.io/blog/pages/VipRiser.html

But since you appear to have Adobe and saving a document as a pdf does what you want, I don't understand what else you need. Just keep saving as a PDF from Adobe.

How is "digitally printing" it different than saving it as a pdf? Saving as a pdf is an option from the print dialog in any Mac application I've ever used. But, from Adobe Acrobat, I just save the document as a pdf then email the pdf. If I want signatures, I use the Adobe Sign function.

I'm glad I finally grasped your problem well enough to give you a direction. Preview is nowhere near as capable as Acrobat Pro but, sometimes that's a plus.