How to Protect PDF Today Blog

By Emily Green

The PDF, or Portable Document Format, has become a staple in today’s electronic world. These documents are the cornerstone of file and document sharing due to the portability and ease of use. These types of documents can be used across differing platforms and operating systems, machines and monitors — and they will retain their original formatting as well.

While these documents are very popular, as with any type of document that will be shared, security is an issue. Many people do not realize that without security systems in place, PDFs can be changed and disseminated freely. Understanding these issues is very important, especially if the PDF documents contain trademarked, confidential or sensitive information.

There are several ways to ensure the security of your PDFs, including who can view the document to how it can be shared.

Passwords and Public Keys

Basic PDF security uses encryption; however there are many different ways to encrypt a document. The most basic way is to password-protect the file to give only those users with that password access to the PDF. When using this type of protection, it is best to send the password via a different transmission method, such as the phone, so that the password is not sent with the document.

Using public and private keys is another essential of PDF security. To use this, a digital certificate needs to be obtained. There are many different assigning authorities of this type of certification and programs such as Outlook have easy-to-use tools to obtain one. Once the certificate has been obtained, the PDF can be encrypted with this digital certificate or signature. The recipient of the encrypted PDF will need a corresponding key to open and/or manipulate the document.

Copying and Printing

There are methods that can be put into place to prevent the printing or copying of PDF documents. Security can be put into place that can deter the copying and pasting of text or images to another document. In addition, the PDF can be formatted to not allow high-resolution printing. These features are especially important for people such as designers and writers who are sending proofs to clients who have yet to pay for the project. While most people wouldn’t think of stealing work this way, these security methods are a way to ensure works remain protected.

There are several ways to put these security features into place. Many programs have these features built in. Additionally, there are many online services that can help secure PDF documents. No matter the choice, securing PDF documents is something anyone who needs to share sensitive documents should use.

Emily Green is a working writer, published poet, and admitted alliteration addict currently living outside of Boston. Specializing in food and travel writing, she can usually be found making a mess of her kitchen or getting lost (on purpose…usually) in the small towns of New England. She also makes cheese. No, really. You can find more of her writing at Copy for Bylines.

The regular PDF security furnished by Acrobat PDF consists of two distinctive strategies and two distinct passwords, “user password” and “owner password”.

A secure PDF document may possibly be guarded by password to open (‘user’ password). The document may well also specify PDF security restrictions even when the document is decrypted: printing, copying text and graphics out of the document, modifying the document, or adding or modifying text notes and AcroForm fields (working with ‘owner’ password).

Nonetheless, all functions (except the document open password safety, if applicable) which might be restricted by “owner” or “user” passwords are trivially circumvented by lots of frequently offered “PDF cracking” program and even freely on the web.

If circumvented these PDF security restrictions no more allow the creator handle what can and can’t be completed together with the pdf file as soon as distributed. This warning can also be displayed when applying these kinds of constraints applying Adobe Acrobat program to create or edit PDF information.

Even without the need of eradicating the password, most freeware or open source PDF readers will ignore the permission “protections” and can allow the consumer to print or make duplicate of excerpts of the text as if the document had been not limited by password protection.

Some answers, like Adobe’s LiveCycle Rights Administration , are a lot more sturdy signifies of knowledge rights management, which could both limit who will open documents, but also reliably enforce permissions in methods that the common safety handler doesn’t.

It’s often been an issue with document content material, the stability between what you’d like your readers to not be able to copy and what they ought to be in a position to take and edit.

You’d like it to be very simple to open and study, but not have everyone take your content material for themselves. The Internet is already well-known for becoming a playground for plagiarists, but you don’t want your reader to necessarily truly really feel like you don’t trust them.

Nevertheless, your documents will often consist of delicate or commercial content material. You’ll be losing money by handing that information to sets of readers you don’t need. If your content is strictly password protected, you may alienate your viewers.

There are several layers of protection accessible from most PDF creators. You are in a position to manage which images or videos could be copied and printed, or which text could possibly be highlighted, dragged and dropped into someone cheap word processor.

Password-only PDF security is weak, but restricts the reader from certain features of PDF access and copying. You might uncover functions that permit digital signature of documents only by an authorized signer, and which prohibit further editing of text and images. You may wish to identify who viewed the documents, what has edited or copied and when.

A document can incorporate many layers of password security in a PDF. By way of example, a PDF file can require open document password by the consumer. But there are much better and secure ways, that have many more PDF security features that just a password, which can easily be broken.

Ever since the portable document format has been launched by Adobe systems, it has become a popular document sharing format over the internet. Do you wonder why this format has been liked by a majority of internet users? Did it ever occur to you why people convert word documents into PDF format? Has it ever happened that you have evaluated the need of using a PDF converter so that you can convert word documents into this format? If you have never thought about these questions, it is time you must think about them. In this article, you will be able to learn about the significance and benefit of using the portable document format over the other formats available. Let us count the points which tell us why PDF is a superior format to the rest.

Easily compatible – Files which are created in portable document format can be viewed by opening them on almost any computer operating system. PDF is compatible with all operating systems, whether you are using Linux, UNIX, Windows, Mac or any other system.

Structure creation and formatting of data – When you transfer or share PDF documents via the web, email or intranet, formatting, structure and properties of the documents are preserved. No other format is capable in retaining the data format and structure of documents to be shared over the net. This is one strong reason, that confirms the popularity of PDF document format.

Compression of files – One top benefit of converting documents into PDF is that files can be compressed. When conversion of documents takes place from doc to PDF, the size of the document reduces by a good level. A document which is small in size can be speedily uploaded and downloaded.

Security and protection – Documents created in portable document format are absolutely secure to be shared over the internet. It is because of the high-level encryption feature that the data stored in a file is protected from any form of intimidating element.

Various advantages offered by the format attract people to use only this format when confidential documents need to be transferred. With the help of competent PDF converter you can convert documents from any format like excel or word to PDF. With the password-protection feature you can add to the security level of the content in your files and easily transfer them over to receivers via the web making PDF one of the most secure document format.

Saner Rijet is an IT professional with over 7 years experience working both in academics and industry. For all your document conversion needs like Word to PDF or to convert PDF to word; visit his site at PDF Converter.

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Since Adobe Systems introduced the PDF format in 1993 it has rapidly become the number one universal document format on the internet. Not without any reasons, as there is a growing demand for such a universal format to allow people to share their ideas and work digitally on the internet. The number of different software programs keeps on growing and growing, from fantastic organizers, spreadsheet programs, to photo editing software: they all tend to make our lives easier, but often forget one major point: the ability to allow the user to share his/her work! The so called web 2.0 is already a fact, and the internet is becoming a place of creating and sharing your own ideas and work.

The popular PDF format solved this problem by introducing itself as a system-wide universal format: almost anyone on any computer system is able to open a PDF file these days. People have clearly discovered some advantages of PDF files, but yet only a few are actively creating PDF files themselves. So why should you consider creating your own PDF documents? I present you the top 10 advantages of this widely popular format:

1. Compatible Across platforms; From Windows, Mac, Linux, to even modern mobile phones and PDA’s: PDF files can be opened on basically any system! You don’t have to worry about your co-workers, students, family, or whomever you’re sharing your work with, not being able to open your files.

2. Compact & Small; When you convert an existing document to a PDF file, it will automatically be highly optimized making it much smaller in size without losing any quality. Note that you can often also combine and merge multiple documents into one single PDF: spreadsheets, word documents, photos, etc..: you can join them all together into a single PDF File!

3. Can be created from any source document/application; The powerful technology behind the PDF format allows you to convert almost any document, from any application to a PDF file. With a decent PDF Creator your PDF file will just look like you printed your file on high quality paper.

4. Secure to avoid people from modifying & redistributing your work; Protect your PDF File, and prevent users from printing, duplicating or even opening your work. The encrypted protection makes it possible to share your work, without having to worry about various doom scenarios.

5. Secure, lower chance of getting infected with viruses; There’s low chance of a PDF file getting infected with something like a virus or trojan, which makes it a safe and trusted way of sharing your work.

6. Easy and quick to create when using the right software; You’ll find a ton of different pdf conversion programs on the internet, one looking even more fancier than the other, with prices varying from $30 to $4000. Most of them are pretty easy to use though, and you’ll usually be able to convert your documents to PDF in a few simple clicks. Choosing a good software solution is another story, but you can find some advice at my other PDF Creator article.

7. Software to view PDF Files is completely free; Software like Acrobat Reader to open PDF Files can be downloaded for free, and is already installed on most computers. Often it will be installed in combinations with other software you bought on CD-Rom. (A lot of companies deliver their documentation as PDF files.)

8. Viewable within most web-browsers; You’re simply able to open and view PDF files in your favorite web-browser. You can simply click a link whenever someone links to a PDF file on a website, and the file will be opened automatically.

9. PDF Files meet legal document requirements; A document must be kept in a format that can’t be changed or altered without leaving any footprints, if you want it to be admissible in a court of law. A created PDF file can’t be altered, and usually meets these legal requirements. (Contact a legal advisor for more info.)

10. Compatible with modern portable reader systems; This is a whole new but powerful phenomenon: various companies like Sony are working on digitally paper pads. These flat panels, not much larger than a regular book, allow you to upload your PDF files to the device, so you can read through the information like a normal book. Sounds like science fiction, but you can already buy these devices for +- $299. Prices are guaranteed to drop the coming years, and it’s a great way to save literally heaps of paper!

Visit this Convert Word document to PDF lens page for more info about creating your own PDF files.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/485574

This short video shows how you how to protect your PDF with a password, using Adobe Acrobat. This is not the most secure method to protect your PDFs and documents. However, it is better than doing nothing at all.

The video also shows you easy ways to protect your PDFs with more convenient and secure methods. You can also get a free coupon here for security above what Adobe Acrobat gives you with Acrobat; http://bookguardpro.com