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Protecting a document

15 years ago

I've used PDFCreator to convert a MS Word document (large) into PDF format.

Now I want to save that document on disk, but I want to make sure it's 'READ ONLY'. I realise anybody who knows much about computers can break the encryption, but I want to make it just that little bit more difficult for them.

How do I go about it?

If I've made it 'Read only', surely that means that I can't copy it onto disk myself?

From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDFCreator:

PDFCreator allows the user to disable printing, copying of text or images and modifying the original document. The user can also choose between two types of passwords, user and owner, to restrict PDF files in several ways. The former is required to open the PDF file, while the latter is necessary in order to change permissions and password. Encryption can be either 40bits, compatible with Adobe Acrobat 3.0 or 4.0, or 128 bits for Acrobat 5.0 or higher.

As things are at present, I can do whatever I like with that PDF document!

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Comments (9)

marooma
15 years ago
Maybe the link below will help.

Terry

Here is a link that might be useful: How to create a Secure PDF document easily and cheaply
debo_2006
15 years ago
You can do this from right within Word.

Within your document do the following:

- go to Tools
- click on Protect Document
- a menu will come up with 3 option. click on Forms
- You'll have to enter a password, click ok, then re-enter the password again.

Now if you want to edit the document, you'll have to "unprotect" the document by doing:

- Click on Tools
- Click on Unprotect
- Enter the password
Now you can edit.

Remember if you forget the password, there's no way of being about to edit the document.

I use the protect feature all the time, and I keep the same password on every document so that I am never second guessing what password goes to what document.
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Daisyduckworth
Original Author
15 years ago
Thank you, both! Much appreciated.
Daisyduckworth
Original Author
15 years ago
I've checked out Debi's method, but it doesn't stop anyone from copying the document, or parts thereof! That's what I really want.

I think the same applies to Marooma's method, too.

So, it turns out that the documents aren't really protected at all! There must be a way!

At least to keep the honest people from stealing it!
bob414
15 years ago
As described it can be protected from being changed. I see no way you can prevent it from being copied if someone is determined. If I can read something then at the very least I can take a screen shot and scan it into OCR and copy it from there.
PKponder TX Z7B
15 years ago
I think that what you want is to copyright the document. You might try Googling that. I am not aware of any free way to do this, but I certainly don't know everything.

Pam
Terrapots
15 years ago
Is this PDFCreator a free program? I sent someone some letters created in Word and she could not print it because she apparently didn't have Word. From what I'm reading, it's better to send PDF files so they can't be changed, which might be important. I had a little trouble printing a PDF file today from an email, it would only save it. Then right clicked on AcrobatReader and it could print from there. I see from this forum that maybe I could use a different reader than Acrobat. Don't want to hijack this thread, but just got through searching this forum and reading about free Foxit which I'm now considering. Hope I'm not making this too confusing.
owbist
15 years ago
Terrapots, yes PDFcreator is free and is a nice program.

However you could simply save your Word document as Rich Text Format (RTF) so that anyone can open it with whatever word processing program they have installed. And everyone with any flavour of Windows has Wordpad installed.
fruitjarfla
15 years ago
This one is not as complicated and is an almost foolproof computer terrorist free procedure. Copy the file to a removable disk, floppy or flash storage. Check the copied file to make sure it is okay. Delete the original from the computer. Remove the removable storage and put it under your mattress along with your money. Do not tell anyone where it is. Yes the erased file will still be in your trash bin so delete it from there - but will still be there in netherland until it is overwritten. Instead, when you first make the document put it only on removable storage.

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