Flatten multiple PDF files automatically in Acrobat

The Tip of the Night for January 14, 2023 discussed how to remove hyperlinks from PDFs being filed with a court.

'Flattening' a PDF is a common step to take before filing a document electronically in order to ensure that forms on the PDF can't be subsequently altered. Courts usually view writing a PDF file to a new PDF as being sufficient to flatten the document. On its web page entitled, 'Flattening a Fillable PDF', the Second Circuit instructs e-filers to print out court filings to new PDFs in Acrobat.

Likewise the site of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has a page entitled, "How to Flatten PDF Forms", that recommends flattening filings the same way.

See the sites of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi ("What is 'Flattening a PDF?"); the United States District Court for the Western District of New York ("How to Flatten a PDF File or Form for Filing in CM/ECF"); and the United States District Court for the North District of Texas ("Flattening a PDF File").

But writing a PDF to a new PDF file, will not necessarily remove all of the links in the PDF. You can however use an option under the Preflight function in Acrobat, named 'flatten annotations and form fields' which will remove all of the links in a PDF, without doing a conversion to tiff image format as discussed in the January 14, 2023 tip. In my testing this method removes links in the footers of PDFs, which simply writing a file to a new PDF file will not.

We can also set up this function in an Adobe action to process multiple PDFs by following the below steps, which is a big advantage over the approach used on the courts' web sites.

1. Create a new action and select 'Preflight' under the 'Document Processing' menu from the list of tools on the left.

2. Under the 'Acrobat Pro DC 2015 Profiles' pick the option for 'Flatten annotations and form fields'.

3. Set the processed PDFs to be outputted to a new folder:

4. Add a save function to the action:

You'll be able to use this action to remove the links from multiple PDF files which have been prepared for filing.

BatchGuru - transform metadata in Relativity

BatchGuru from vdiscovery and Nikolai Pozdniakov's Hashtaglegal, is a set of tools to be used in a Relativity workspace which helps you easily transform metadata in existing fields.

If you need to remove email addresses from email metadata to, from, cc, or bcc fields for the purposes of generating output for a document index or privilege log, you can use the 'Remove Email Address' function which creates a new field with the addresses listed with domains deleted, and the email name aliases left in:

You can set it up simply by creating a batch and specifying source and destination fields:

BatchGuru also facilitates the export of native files. Create a new batch using 'Native Exporter' as the data source, and specify a metadata field to be used to designate the filenames:

. . . the output goes to another module in BatchGuru named, 'Native Exporter - Pick Up':

. . . which then links to a zip file containing the exported native files:

This function has limitations because the zip file which is generated is added to the workspace. Multiple exports of large numbers of native files can increase the size of the workspace considerably.

BatchGuru includes many other tools which will allow fields to be split by specified delimiters; generate 'autopreviews' of the first few lines of emails in document lists; and count the number of recipients listed in a single email message. Check out what's possible with it today!

The GDPR's ROPAs

Article 30 of the General Data Protection Regulation requires controllers of personal data to maintain a 'record of processing activities' which includes seven key pieces of information:

1. Controller name and contact information.

2. Purpose for the processing.

3. The categories of personal data and data subjects.

4. The categories of recipients to whom data will be disclosed.

5. Transfers of data to third countries or international organizations.

6. The time range for which the data will be held and then erased.

7. The security measures taken to protect the data.

You can find a good example of a spreadsheet used to track ROPA data on the site of the UK's National Health Service.

Compare this with an example on the site of the Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL), the French agency charged with enforcing data privacy laws.

Supporting documentation is often required for ROPAs, such as vendor DPAs, (Data Processing Agreements) which address the terms under which a service provider processes personal data for a company, and DSAR responses (Data Subject Access Requests), which are actions taken to remove, alter, or access personal data on the request of the person whose data is involved.

Organizations often prepare data maps to track the personal data they are holding. Some service providers such as BigID have developed systems which help companies assess private data on their network.