Protected PDF and indexing - I've searched the forum and can't find an answer

HCL Domino Domino Forum
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Hello All,

We have a Domino based web site (w2k, 6.5) which contains a lot of PDFs (vers 1.4). We want these PDFs to be searchable and viewable via a browser. However, we do not want it to be possible to modify or download these files.

When we set the security on the PDFs to be 128bit (no password, just encryption - I’m no expert on the PDF side so if this is wrong please let me know) then the full text index does not return the correct results, in fact it only returns 3 correct results when it should return over 200. When we have no encryption (through the PDF settings) , then the search function works correctly.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar?

Can I set up the settings on the PDFs so that they are only viewable, not downloadable but still searchable?

Thanks for any help

Jon

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Subject: Protected PDF and indexing - I’ve searched the forum and can’t find an answer

JSL,You are trying to do two things in the same step that should be separated.

  1. To set the PDF to read only, set the options on your PDF Writer (whatever you are using) to “Use PDF Security”, and then:

Do not allow users to: Copy text and graphics from document.

  1. To display PDF’s use a Notes Form (in Designer) with the “Auto Launch” (third tab from the left) set to -First Attachment-

You need to have a RTF Field on your Form and a way of attaching the PDF’s into this RTF.

When the user opens the document after it has been created, it will automatically launch and will not be editable.

Regards

Rolf Pfotenhauer

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Subject: RE: Protected PDF and indexing - I’ve searched the forum and can’t find an answer

Hi Rolf,

Thanks for getting back to me.

Wasn’t clear in my first message. The 128 bit encryption is set in the PDF writer (Adobe Acrobat 5.0). When I apply Acrobat standard security, we get the option of 40 bit or 128 bit RC4 encryption.

The 128 bit encryption doesn’t seem to allow for text searches at all. But maybe we don’t need that as all we want to do is prevent people doing anything with the file other than reading or printing it.

We set the doc security in the PDFs (through Acrobat) to 40 bit (which allows for FT searching) and select all the settings that prevent tampering (no changing, no content copying, no adding) then attach them to the doc in the database. However, when we look at the site through a browser, its still possible to save the PDF and edit its conents.

So I have two questions now:

Do I need 128 bit encryption to prevent tampering and if so, how do I get the Domino FT search to work?

If I don’t need 128 bit encryption, how should the PDFs be set up so that it is only possible to view and print them?

I realise the latter is not really Domino related but I’m hoping someone in the community with some experience can help.

cheers

Jon

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Subject: RE: Protected PDF and indexing - I’ve searched the forum and can’t find an answer

Jon,As per my last post, I advise the following:

  1. Don’t use encryption at all

  2. set PDF writer (by the way Adobe Acrobat 5.0 is a Reader NOT a writer) to disallow Copy, but allow Print.

This will allow Printing and Viewing. You don’t need more than that.

Regards

Rolf Pfotenhauer