Eli5: Why does our printer sometimes say “flattening” when printing drawings, proceeded with a long wait?

Question

Eli5: Why does our printer sometimes say “flattening” when printing drawings, proceeded with a long wait?

In: 6

Answer 1

Is it printing directly from USB or something? You are probably using an image format with layers. The printer needs to combine the layers to one to be able to print it.

Answer 2

Using Adobe Acrobat to print PDFs? Large size printer? It’s because the graphics are made of many individual elements described as lines in the file that need to be combined into a pixel format.

[https://www.cadzation.com/help/PrintAsImage.htm](https://www.cadzation.com/help/PrintAsImage.htm)

Your printer doesn’t “say” that, I’m guessing. You likely see the message on a computer screen. I have have a printer that does its “flattening” with an anti-curl motor that keeps the paper from curling from heat.