Are you trying to keep a PDF to yourself? Or, do you only want to share it with a select few individuals?
The best way for protecting a PDF is to add password protection. This prevents anyone from opening your PDF without typing the password first. It works when you share the PDF online and offline.
This password-protection will also help prevent others from making copies or sharing your PDF with unauthorized persons.
Here’s what you need to know about how to password protect a PDF:
Protecting a PDF by Restricting Access
If you have Adobe Acrobat Reader you can easily add a password to any PDF.
Here’s what to do:
- Open your PDF in the application
- Go to File > Protect Using Password
- A dialog box will open; you can choose to password-protect for viewing or editing
- Type your desired password
- Click Apply and you’ll receive confirmation of the protection
Advanced Password Protection
Now let’s look at adding advanced password protection to your PDFs. This offers an extra layer of protection on the PDF and its contents.
Here’s what to do:
- Go to Tools > Protect > More Options > Encrypt with Password
- Select the option to ‘Require A Password To Open The Document’
- Type your password; the meter will assess your password’s strength
- You can then choose the compatibility type based on the version of the recipient’s Acrobat Reader
- The higher the compatibility, the more encrypted the PDF will be
- Next, choose the encryption option for your PDF
- All Document Contents: This prevents search engines from accessing the PDF’s metadata
- All Document Contents Except Metadata: This encrypts the PDF’s content but still makes it possible for search engines to index it
- Encrypt Only File Attachments: This prevents users from opening file attachments that are embedded in the PDF
- Click OK and then reconfirm your password to complete the process
Protecting a PDF From Editing
This process prevents others from making any edits to your PDF. They’ll still be able to sign the PDF and fill out any fields.
Once again, open your PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Here’s what to do:
- Go to File > Protect Using Password
- Select the ‘Editing’ Option
- Type your password in the first box
- Confirm your password in the second box
- Click Apply
You’ll receive a confirmation message that the PDF is now protected from editing. You can now send this to others without worrying about them making changes.
This is perfect for legal documents, white papers, and marketing materials with your PDF.
Protecting a PDF From Copying, Editing, and Printing
This process prevents users from editing, printing, and copying your PDF. This adds the most protection to your PDF. This is what gets used by larger corporations, government documents, and even academic institutions.
They can only change these settings if you give them your password. Start by opening your PDF with Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Here’s what to do:
- Go to Tools > Protect > More Options > Encrypt With Password
- Choose the option for ‘Restrict Editing And Printing Of The Document’
- You can choose to allow or forbid printing, editing, copying as you choose
- Type in your password
- Select the Acrobat version from the Compatibility menu to encrypt the PDF
- Click OK
- Reconfirm your password and then click OK again
Let’s look a bit deeper at the options you have with this feature.
Printing Allowed
With the printing allowed feature you have three options:
None: This prevents any printing of the PDF.
Low Resolution: This allows the PDF to get printed with low-resolution settings. The maximum amount for this option is 150 dpi.
High Resolution: This allows the PDF to get printed at any resolution above 150 dpi.
You can also select All if you don’t want to restrict printing. You can restrict copying without restricting printing and vice-versa.
Changes Allowed
This sets restrictions on what edits can get made to the PDF. Here are your options:
None
Restricts any edits including signing and filling fields or adding comments
Inserting, Deleting, And Rotating Pages
This allows your users to add additional pages to the PDF. They can also change the order of the pages and delete individual pages as they wish.
Filling In Form Fields And Signing Existing Signature Fields
This lets users fill in the form fields and sign the PDF. They can’t add comments or make edits to the PDF. There’s another option for filling fields, signing the PDF, and adding comments.
Any Except Extracting Pages
This lets users edit the PDF as they please. The only restriction is that they cannot extract individual pages to create a new PDF.
You also have the feature for Copying the PDF. With this feature there are two options to choose from:
Enable Copying Of Text, Images, And Other Content
This allows complete copying of any of the content of a PDF
Enable Text Access For Screen Reader Devices For The Visually Impaired
This lets visually-impaired readers use a screen reader to read the PDF. However, they cannot copy any of the contents of the PDF.
Copying the PDF doesn’t allow users to duplicate the PDF file. This can only get done if the PDF isn’t encrypted.
Storing Your PDFs
As a final step, it’s advisable to store your PDF on secure cloud storage servers or on password-protect hard drives. You can use an encrypted email service to send the files to others.
You should also ZIP PDF files within folders and give them unique names to protect their identity.
For complete security, you can send your PDF using instant messaging services like Signal. These will automatically delete the PDF from the recipient’s server after a set duration.
Keep Your PDFs Protected
Now that you know the steps for protecting a PDF you can make sure your PDF never gets to the wrong hands!
Make sure you always protect important documents such as drafts, contracts, policies, trade secrets information, etc.
If you run a business, share this guide with your staff so they know how to protect a PDF from access and editing by others. You should also check out our guide on how to compress your PDF.