Prevent PDF file from downloading and printing

I am trying to find a way to prevent a PDF from being printed or downloaded when view from web. Also, it is prefered that user cannot print screen.

I am thinking about converting those PDF files to Flash. Any other ideas?

Okay, I take back what I commented earlier. Just talked to one of the senior guys in my shop and he said it is possible to lock it down hard. What you can do is convert the pdf to an image/flash/whatever and wrap it in an iFrame. Then, you create another image with 100% transparency and lay it over top the iFrame (not in it) and set it to have a higher Z-value than the iFrame.

What this will do is that if they right click on the 'image' to save it, they will be saving the transparent image instead. And since the image 'overrides' the iFrame, any attempt to use print screen should be shielded by the image, and they should only be able to snapshot the image that doesn't actually exist.

That leaves only one or two ways to get at the file...which requires digging straight into the source code to find the image file inside the iFrame. Still not totally secure, but protected from your average user.

Ultimately you will need to:

• Create Images for each page
• Present those to the user on the web via your own interface (html, flash etc)

Keep in mind flash wont work on Apple devices if that's required.

A print screen will allow someone to recreate the low res image you present, and in this case you could add a watermark to the image.

That is not possible. Reading is downloading. When a user is reading a file, browser is downloading that file to temp. So even if you disable the download button, the user can click "File -> Save As" or copy that file from temp folder.

There are a few things you can do:

Method 1

The following code will embed a PDF without any toolbars and hide the print/download icons

<embed src="{URL_TO_PDF.PDF}#toolbar=0&navpanes=0&scrollbar=0" width="425" height="425">

Method 02

Using Google Drive

Right click on pdf and goto Share(below image)

Then go to Advanced option in left bottom

Tick Both check boxes. After copy embed link and paste it to your src. No download and Save drive option is not allowed

If you encrypt the PDF you can control how printable and changeable it is.

Print settings:

1. None
2. Low res (150 dpi)
3. high res (max dpi)

You can also prevent folks from copying/pasting from your PDF, and even do that while allowing screen readers access (visually impaired folks can still read your PDFs).

You haven't mentioned what you're using to build the PDFs so the details are up to you.

Alternative: You can create annotations that are only visible when printing. Create a solid box over the entire page that only shows up when printed -> No useful printing.

You might be able to do the same thing with layers (Optional Content Groups) as well, not sure.

Creating a video with QuickTime's screen capture or anything similar kind of defeats all the effort to protect your document file from being copied.