Applies to: Pro and Enterprise
Purpose
Maximum Assurance is the strongest predefined PDFSanitize profile for reducing reliance on the original PDF page structure. Use it when structural minimization is more important than retaining selectable source text, vector objects, forms, links, or other original page-level functionality.
How it works
Every page is rendered and placed into a newly constructed PDF at a fixed 300 DPI in the current implementation. Page dimensions are preserved, but the visible page is represented as rendered content rather than the original text and vector object graph.
After page reconstruction, PDFSanitize applies structural cleanup again and validates the final PDF.
Default removals
The Maximum Assurance profile removes:
- Document information metadata;
- XMP metadata;
- Document identifiers;
- Previous or incremental revisions;
- Comments and annotations;
- Interactive forms and form data;
- Embedded files;
- JavaScript and document actions;
- Optional-content structures;
- Hyperlink annotations and external navigation actions;
- Bookmarks;
- Hidden/off-page text from the original page object structure.
Automatic verification and SHA-256 fingerprinting are enabled by default.
Functional changes
The predefined Maximum Assurance result does not retain original selectable text, vector graphics, forms, hyperlinks, or digital signatures as native source structures. Text search, copy/paste, accessibility behavior, document tagging, and file size can therefore differ materially from the source.
Confirmation prompt
Before processing, PDFSanitize warns that every page will be reconstructed and that original source text, vector objects, forms, hyperlinks, and digital signatures will not be retained. Continue only after confirming that this tradeoff is acceptable for the intended recipient and retention policy.
Visual review
Verification confirms structural and policy conditions but is not a substitute for a visual comparison. For important disclosures, open the sanitized output and check page orientation, legibility, diagrams, small text, unusual fonts, transparency, and any content near page boundaries.