Fairly Urgent, can someone advise?

I have been asked to send some of our copyright-protected work to a potential customer, suggested method burning PDFs to disk and mail along with accompanying letter/enclosures/contract.

I've prepared the folder for burning, and have locked the first couple of files.

However looking around the internet, I see that locking the files is next to no protection at all. A person could just unlock them, and even if they don't do that, they can still copy text from them, into any other application. I tried that myself with one of the locked PDFs.

Before I go any further, am I wasting my time trying to prevent these PDFs from copying by the recipient? I made the originals using Pages and made the PDFs using print, save as PDF.

Maybe I should just abandon the PDF > disk burning altogether and just send them hard copy? They can't fiddle with that or upload it God knows where.

Many thanks for any help. I have to do this in the next 24 hours.

Mac to Mac? Use an encrypted disk image (dmg) file to store the whole mess.

But once unencrypted the recipient would have access to the PDF and could copy text.

I thought of password protecting the PDF, but this has the same problem once it is unlocked.

I have no idea which computers they use, how could I?

That they use Macs seems unlikely, however, and that is hardly the point.

PDF = portable document format, yes? So anyone on any computer sends receives reads makes PDFs.

I am getting more pertinent help regarding copyright-protected work and forwarding-of on another forum, but thanks for now.

According to the Help Center, to prevent a pdf file from being changed, make it a "read only" document.

Sorry if this is a "wet blanket," but once potential customers have got your material in any format, can't they do whatever they want with it...even if it means copying your docs onto their own computers by hand?

Granted that copyright protection isn't much more than an illusion, but isn't it enough?

Sorry, guess i simply misread the problem... and now i've lost interest altogether.

Not a solution per-se, but perhaps a work around…

Before the documents are converted to PDF, include a large-bold diagonal watermark that says Proprietary and at the bottom of each page include another watermark with the copyright restrictions/caveat, etc.

Of course, the documents could always be hand-copied, but then the miscreant would indeed be at some legal peril.

The solution was right here on the Mac.

It works, too.

At the click of a button, no printing or copying allowed, no extra software necessary, all built into the OS.

FWIW-

I think that if I were wanting to reproduce a PDF that is does not allow printing or copying...

I merely take a screen shot of the document, saving the output as a TIFF. This is usually good enough for an OCR equipped scanner to have at it. Then save the newly scanned document and voilà!

Others will know better than moi how well or if this really would work. I don't even have a scanner.

At the click of which button?
Do you own Acrobat Pro or something?
(it doesn't come built into the OS)

Is no one take note of what I pointed out above?
The option exists to make the document (~ pdf file) "read only". So, unless the recipient has the same user account as you on his/her computer, that should take care of the issue.
(And, if you wish, you can also make the file "read only" for yourself. )

I convert scanned text images to PDF all the time and unless the original used a really odd ball font or was of poor quality, the OCR module in Adobe Acrobat will very accurately convert the image to PDF text that is searchable and can be copied and pasted into Pages/Word/NeoOffice/etc. However any formatting and layout is almost invariably lost in this process.

Where exactly? Which program? Preview.app?
I don't see that option anywhere in there yet.

So you guarantee that no one else can copy text from it, when opened on their computer? (a Windows PC perhaps... which might be used by a person who owns Adobe Acrobat Pro).

With my level of expertise I'm not a good choice to guarantee anything.

However, open document (I use Word*), save as PDF (in File menu). Depending on how your settings read (check Get Info), you can set permissions for the file (which is how I arrived at the conclusions I did — and would be more than pleased to be corrected if my suppositions are wrong).

* I don't know if other word processors offer the same option.

I am so glad that for once I have found a solution, all by myself, which still seems to elude others on a technical messageboard.



Have a nice weekend, I know I will, I'm flying at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Back next week sometime.

You too! The solution is here: Print>save as PDF. In the dialog box (where to save and how name a file) there is a button "security settings". It allows to password-protect the PDF file. But as many have pointed out, there is a multitude of ways to bypass it. As I mentioned earlier, a nice app PDFprotect will deprotect any PDF instantly. Copyright should be enforced by other ways, I think.

Physical access owns all. Never forget that, never take it for granted. Once you lose physical control of something, anything is possible. The most you can do is make certain things more difficult, but that should not be relied heavily upon.

I don't care how big the lock is. If I have it in my garage all weekend with power tools and a cutting torch, I'm getting in.

I see... so your game is to elude people, instead of helping the next person that visits these forums who might actually be looking to solve the same problem.

How old are you again?

Ah, thanks. So 'Save As PDF' has that security option button/dialog... right where post #1 started in the first place (thus the last place i considered looking, as it couldn't be there). Yes it does seem to work quite well.

However, in addition to the OCR methods mentioned above...


Along with an abundance of shareware offerings, i just tried out this freeware and it worked instantly on my simple test-document. (so perhaps the expense of Acrobat Pro can be saved as well.)

"Does not unlock PDF files you need to enter a password to open." Duh!

Well, that's cute; thanks for sharing the details with those who've shared their knowledge with you on so many occasions.

A question, if I may: You've been running your business for, I believe you said, 15 years, so how did you handle situations such as the present one for the first 14+ of them?

Can you provide some context and also elaborate a bit more?
[what is this in reference to, and what has it to do with me?]

As i said, i actually tested that freeware, and it worked in the **context** of this thread. [i.e., using a password to prevent copying/resaving... nothing to do with opening.]

Duh!

I'm with you on this one, Hal.

The issue all along was not to prevent someone from "seeing" the contents of the file, but once having seen it, a way to prevent them from copying the contents.

We all wait with baited breath for the original poster's return.

OK, somewhat related, this reminds me of the famous 17th century mathematician Pierre de Fermat. He went through a book of unsolved (at that time) mathematical problems and attempted to solve many of them. On one in particular he noted in the margin that he was able to solve it but the limited space in the margin of the text prevented him from showing the solution.

For 300 years mathematicians tried, unsuccessfully, to solve the problem (Fermat's Last Theorem). In the late 20th century a valid proof was presented and it required mathematics unknown to Fermat. Consequently many doubted his original claim of having solved the problem.

I hope we don't have to wait that long for a solution to this one, and I hope it is valid.

In truth there is no iron-clad solution. The 'save as...' with security options works pretty well... and it does make it inconvenient for someone who can read the content to actually copy the content. Inconvenient, but not impossible.

I have to admit, opening the pdf with a hex-editor provided zero help... as the contents are encrypted. So it's either break the password or use OCR on a printout.

Still, requiring such tricks helps to emphasize the (undesirable) illegality of such an undertaking... and makes the author's intent quite clear.

Take my words back! PDFprotect crashed when trying to deprotect a PDF requiring a password to open. But looks like PDF key can do it (crack the password), and also can remove all kinds of PDF protection. For $39 it seems no PDF could be left protected...

I still think he only meant the security settings in print to PDF. No Fermat here... BTW, I know of a real story of a person who submitted FLT proof in the 60s or 70s to the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and it was rejected based on the fact that some mathematical apparatus was used that Fermat could not have known. ArXiv was not there at that time...

Making a file "read only" by setting Mac permissions doesn't affect the file if it's emailed, only affects the file if it's read on a Mac, is defeated by changing the permissions or copying the file to a disk that has permissions disabled (by default, external drives have permissions disabled), and doesn't prohibit copying the contents of the file to the clipboard.

PDF files can be password-protected, and the password-protected PDF can be limited in many ways, including setting permissions for copying, modifying, and printing. However, there are programs circulating the Internet which strip the password from protected PDFs.

Really, the only realistic protections are legal. If you have a copyrighted PDF and your client steals it without paying you, sue them. if you can't afford to sue and you don't trust your client to pay you, drop that client and do business with clients you DO trust.

The above points are on point. So are several others made throughout this thread. Once the file is out of your hands, all bets are off.
For a bit of legal protection, make sure that you send/email yourself a copy of the file emailed to client — essentially a legal receipt for the mailing. Then, if necessary, you turn everything over to your lawyer/solicitor.

Your last point is a valid one! The e-mail also has a date; I am not sure one can modify it for their benefits. And Tacit's comments are right on the money too.

It seems that this query was never answered. It would be nice to know what solution (built into Mac OS X) deals with the 'locking' problem.

Wouldn't your post have been better directed at Bensheim?

Actually, though, Alex answered the question in post #19082 (above)...the one directly below Bensheim's smug brush-off of Hal's request for the info.

Post #19082 slipped right by me. Thanks for pointing it out.