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PDF encrypting with Mac Os X or an external tool??

B

bsmr

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 4, 2005
1,181
316
Germany
With Mac Os X 10.4.3 it is possible to save documents as pdf-files.

is there also a chance to encrypt these pdf's? i don't mean the possibility to set a password - that's working fine. what i mean is the possibility to give pdf-documents authorisations like permitting a user only to print a document or similar.

for windows there do exist a lot of freeware tools, like freepdf; pdfcreator; freepdfxp ....

i didn't mentioned it so far... - i wanna have a freeware-tool!
--> adobe acrobat is to expensive for me!

i hope anyone can help?!

cheers buddy
 
BollywooD said:
print the file, and an option to save as PDF comes up!
Click to expand...

That's right. But that is not the described problem! I want to change the permissions inside a PDF! I wanna have a PDF where a user only can view and print the pdf-document. with normal pdf-files you can also extract content by marking lines and so one...

it must be a tool or a seeting inside mac os which can solve my described problem... that's what i'm looking for!
 
mduser63 said:
In the print dialog box, click PDF then Encrypt PDF. Is that what you're looking for?
Click to expand...

Nope.

I don't look for a general password-encryption. i would like to have an encryption, like i can set up with adobe acrobat. i mean a pdf with encryption, so that i can give that pdf to other persons and that they only can look the whole pdf and print it. but they are not allowed to take out text pieces or graphics e.g.

i don't look for an overall encryption!!

sorry for my bad english, but i'm not a native speaker....
 
Take a look at this company's products. I think they have one which allows you to set the presentation properties of a pdf file so that the user can only do so much with it. They are not freeware, however. Your English looks perfect!


http://www.pdf-office.com/
 
yellow said:
I don't think what you want to do can be done without Acrobat.
Click to expand...

really? why is it such a big problem? for windows there does exist a lot of products (all freeware) which can solve the responding points without any problems (ghostview/ghostscript, pdfcreator, freepdfxp, ....)
 
buddyspencer said:
really? why is it such a big problem? for windows there does exist a lot of products (all freeware) which can solve the responding points without any problems (ghostview/ghostscript, pdfcreator, freepdfxp, ....)
Click to expand...

Well, we're not Windows. ;) However, maybe there's a plug-in for the PDF printing. Maybe this? It's old and probably won't work with Tiger.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19170

Anyway, you should start looking for what you need on http://versiontracker.com/macosx/
 
buddyspencer said:
really? why is it such a big problem? for windows there does exist a lot of products (all freeware) which can solve the responding points without any problems (ghostview/ghostscript, pdfcreator, freepdfxp, ....)
Click to expand...
FYI Ghostscript originated on unix and is multiplatform, including Macs, so if you can do it in gs, you can do it on the Mac. MacGSView is the Mac native equivalent of ghostview.
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/

I think the real issue you should consider is that if you use the older Acrobat security model you are requesting (and that all of these freeware tools implement) you can also use similar free tools to circumvent these restrictions. (I know from experience).

The new model, available only using Acrobat, requires exchange of public keys. To my knowledge this has yet to be broken, but is far less convenient.

B
 
buddyspencer said:
But when it does exist/works with prior versions of "mac os" it also should work with Tiger?? !!
Click to expand...

Not necessarily.. if the plug-in Apple was using for PDF generation in previous versions of OS X has changed in Tiger... and it has.
 
yellow said:
Not necessarily.. if the plug-in Apple was using for PDF generation in previous versions of OS X has changed in Tiger... and it has.
Click to expand...

... and i must buy adobe acrobat or similar products to solve this issue??!! may be apple changed it's way in encoding documents to the pdf-format because of getting under pressure through adobe?!
 
buddyspencer said:
may be apple changed it's way in encoding documents to the pdf-format because of getting under pressure through adobe?!
Click to expand...

Unknown. All I know is the print-menu PDF creation look/feel has changed from previous iterations of OS X to Tiger. But that's as good a reason as any..
 
yellow said:
Unknown. All I know is the print-menu PDF creation look/feel has changed from previous iterations of OS X to Tiger. But that's as good a reason as any..
Click to expand...
One thing that's changed in OS X's handling of PDF files is that Preview now actually respects the security settings we are discussing here. It didn't always.

I'll repeat what I said before. Adobe Standard Security for PDF files is a fundamentally flawed DRM scheme, and has been broken for years. That ship has sailed. If you need real security consider a PKE based scheme, like Adobe Certificate Security for which you would need the full Acrobat. Otherwise don't bother, if someone cares enough to copy/modify/access your file they can already do so without much effort at all.

If you have only an occasional need to create PDFs with all the bells and whistles and don't want to shell out $300 for Acrobat Standard. Do it online at http://createpdf.adobe.com. The first 5 are free (with some size restrictions), and it's $9.99 per month after that. Cancel any time.

B
 
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