"Security Basics"

By Leah Lothringer
PDF Store Support Team
Issue 6 for 2006

Nowadays, security is paramount when working on the web. How does one effectively secure one's work without compromising the end user’s ability to access the material? There are measures you can take to secure the content within your PDF documents, so that text and images cannot be extracted or copied from a document. Going a step further, you can implement controls that dictate how your document can be used. For instance, you can specify whether or not end users are allowed to print or edit your document. Depending on the functionality you’re after, there are plenty of tools on offer that make securing your work as simple as a few clicks of your mouse.

Basic security restrictions (printing, commenting, extraction permissions) can be added, modified and removed using PDF Enhancer. It is also possible to control where end users can access PDF documents that are of a sensitive nature using PDF Password-X. This program automatically unlocks documents for viewing where authorized and prevents them from being copied to unauthorized locations.

For a solution that encompasses a variety of security features, Nitro PDF Professional is a powerful and inexpensive option. PDF documents can be encrypted using a password (40-bit and 128-bit), a certficate or a digital signature. Users can be prevented from printing, making modifications, copying content and more.

There is a wide range of PDF security products on offer at PDF Store, from basic encryption up to complete Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions (such as Fileopen Publisher). See what else is available in the Security section of PDF Store.