Common BearPDF workflows

New to BearPDF? The fastest useful thing you can do is take a finished resource PDF and lock it down so buyers cannot edit the text or lift your layout. That is the first recipe below. After it are a few more short recipes for the jobs that come up most when you sell on Teachers Pay Teachers and similar marketplaces.

Everything here runs in your browser at bearpdf.bearwoodlabs.com. Your files never leave your machine. For the full walkthrough of every step in the pipeline, see Getting started.

Before your first run

A few things worth knowing on day one:

• BearPDF starts in demo mode and caps each run at 5 pages. For your first test, use a short file or just the first few pages so you can see the whole thing work.
• Flatten is not reversible. Once a page is turned into an image the text is gone for good, so always keep your original source file and work on a copy.
• A license is $59, paid once on Gumroad, and unlocks one device at a time. If you switch machines, re-enter the same key. See Activating your license.

Lock down a finished resource so buyers cannot edit or copy it

This is the recipe most sellers want first. You have a resource exported to PDF and you want to hand it to buyers without them pulling your text into their own file or reselling an edited copy.

1. Click Merge and drop in your finished resource PDF. If you have it in more than one file, add them all and use the up and down arrows to get the order right.

2. Turn on Flatten. This re-renders every page as an image, so the text and layout can no longer be selected, copied, or edited. Leave Keep hyperlinks on if your resource has working links you want to keep, since flatten bakes them in as they are.

3. Optional but recommended: turn on Encrypt. Set a permissions password and uncheck copying and editing so the file stays locked even in a PDF reader. You can leave the open password blank if you want buyers to open it without typing anything.

4. Run it and save the output. Keep your original editable file somewhere safe, because the flattened copy cannot be turned back into text.

Watermark a preview or sample copy

When you want to post a free sample without giving away a clean file, add a watermark. Open the Watermark step, click Customize, and set text like your store name or a logo image. In the editor you can drop the mark into a corner, the center, or any edge, or tile it across the whole page. A live preview shows a real page from your document so you can see where it lands before you run. Turn on Flatten if you want the mark baked into the page so it cannot be deleted in a reader, then run it and use that copy for your listing preview. Keep your unmarked original for paying buyers.

Mark each copy so you can prove it is yours

Open the Watermark editor and look for the Invisible marker field below the visible settings. Type something that ties the file to one buyer, like their order code or a phrase such as sold-by-yourstore-2026, and BearPDF hides it in the text layer of every page. The page still looks pixel-identical, but the phrase is in the file, so later you can search the PDF or copy the text out and find it. If a copy leaks, that order code points back to the buyer you sent it to. The marker is added after flattening, so it survives BearPDF’s own flatten step. It is a hidden proof-of-origin marker and a deterrent. It is not encryption or copy protection, and someone who knows it is there could re-export the file through another tool and strip it out. Leave the field empty to skip it.

Shrink a file that is over an upload cap

Marketplaces limit how large an upload can be, and resources full of photos go over fast. Add your PDF, turn on Compress, and if you are optimizing images set a sensible quality and max DPI to bring the size down. If you also have Flatten on, Compress switches to structure-only cleanup on its own, so run compression on its own pass when the file is mostly photos or scans and you need the most saving.

Export every page as an image

Sometimes you want image versions of each page, for thumbnails or social posts. Add your PDF and set the output to export every page as an image, or choose both if you want the finished PDF and the images together. Each page comes out as its own image file.

Turn PowerPoint slides into separate PDFs

Flat Pack creates one PDF from a PowerPoint presentation. It does not batch-save every slide as a separate PDF. Use BearPDF for the splitting step:

1. Export the full PowerPoint as one PDF. If you use Flat Pack, choose Create PDF to flatten and protect the presentation first.

2. Add that PDF to BearPDF and choose Organise pages.

3. Click + Split after every page that should end a PDF. To make one PDF per slide, add a split after every page. You can also give each PDF its own filename.

4. Click Apply page plan, run the pipeline, and download the separate PDFs.

Restore hyperlinks lost in a PowerPoint export

If you build on a Mac, PowerPoint often drops your clickable links when it exports to PDF, so links to your store or terms of use stop working. BearPDF can put them back. First export the PDF from PowerPoint yourself, then in BearPDF add that exported PDF and also drop in the original .pptx. The .pptx is a side channel, not another input file: BearPDF reads the slide data and injects the links back onto the matching pages, and it only adds links to pages that have none yet. Full instructions are on Keep PowerPoint links.