How to Protect PDF Documents | Acrobat X Tips & Tricks | Adobe Acrobat

protecting documents against unauthorized access or alteration is an important part of modern life and in Acrobat 10 we have improvements in both the strengths of our encryption methods and the simplicity of applying and managing them protection can be applied to PDF files and through portfolios and file attachments to other file formats to either restrict the ability to open a file or block access to features such as printing editing commenting and content extraction Acrobat 10 supports the widest range of protection methods with varying degrees of encryption to choose from based on the value of the documents and the needs of your users all PDF protection relies on encryption using either a password a digital certificate or a server based rights management solution to encrypt a file open the new tools pane and select protection the first two buttons are what we're looking for clicking encrypt opens a drop-down list of the methods and preset profiles available certificate encryption is designed for situations where you know your recipients in advance and they each have a digital ID the public key of which they must share with you in a file by using their certificates to encrypt the document only they can open it so of course you need to make sure you've included your own certificate in the list of recipients or you'll be locked out then we browse for the shared public keys that have been sent by each of our recipients and for each user we can set individual permissions on what they may be allowed to do when they open the file then click Next and click finish the settings have been remembered but they haven't been applied to the file they'll only be applied when you save the document so you can continue to make changes to it and if you change your mind you can choose encrypt remove and reset the document to its unsecured state password-based encryption is the most commonly used method and the most widely supported in non Adobe software plus it doesn't need any advanced knowledge as anyone who knows the password can open the file the settings dialog for password protection has a number of important changes in Acrobat 10 first when you select the compatibility level you can see we still have the ability to target older versions of Acrobat which can be important if your files are being opened in third-party software however the strongest method based on 256 bit encryption is now compatible with Acrobat and reader 10 and later if you're distributing files to users of Acrobat or reader 9 you should choose the Acrobat 7 and later preset there are two ways we can protect the file we can apply an open password which of course is needed to open the file in the first place or we can restrict operations on the file with a permissions password or both of course if you choose both you can't use the same password twice I'll leave the open password blank the new strength indicator shows how complex the password is and how likely it is to be guessed by a human or a software based attack if I just type in hello it tells me it's a weak choice and a couple of digits and it's getting better and maybe some punctuation of course the more complex it is the harder it is to remember so I'll just stick with hello in this example we then define what our recipients will be allowed to do if they don't know this password if they do they can turn off the restrictions I'll allow them to print the file but not to make any changes remember that Adobe Reader 10 now allows access to a basic set of commenting tools for any unsecured document so by selecting none from the changes option I'm turning those off as well to keep them active I'd need to choose one of the commenting options instead you usually leave this first entry unchecked so people can't copy and paste your content to other applications and the second entry checked if you turn this off Acrobat warns you there may be regulatory requirements for accessibility to deal with now I just re-enter the password and we're done I can save the file with a new name using file save as PDF if I was going to distribute the file to Adobe Reader users and I wanted them to be able to fill in forms sign pages or use the full range of commenting tools I'd choose reader extended PDF however the security permissions I've chosen will take priority so as I've decided to prevent all changes reader extending this file wouldn't serve any purpose when we finally save the file the security is applied as you can tell from the title of the window of course always applying the same choices every time is a bit annoying and in Acrobat we can create presets for any type of encryption using encrypt manage the dialog shows all of your predefined policies including any from DRM servers you may be connected to let's click new and make a new password based policy we're asked to name and describe the policy the name will appear within the document so you have to be slightly careful what you say the description is optional and you can choose whether the password will be embedded in the profile or not on ticking this box allows you to use a different password each time you apply the policy now we get the same settings dialog box we saw earlier and this time I'll create an open password clicking finish saves the new policy and I can choose to apply it to the current document right away you can see there's a little star next to the name this means it's a favorite and will appear on the encrypt drop-down list you can choose which policies appear by toggling the star if I close the settings manager you can see the new profile is now ready for use more protection is where you can control files that are protected using digital rights management using Adobe LiveCycle service depending on the policy applied DRM files can be revoked which stops anyone else being able to open their copies and you can see who's done what from the audit history with a server-based DRM solution these links will open in your web browser and take you to the online management interface you can manage your subscriptions to DRM servers as well as your installed digital IDs using the more protection security settings dialog this is also the place where you can export your public keys so that other people can produce certificate signed documents using your identity simply choose your key choose export decide whether you wish to save it to a file attach it to an email and save the file as an FDF finally if you're managing the policies and settings for an enterprise or simply want to transfer all your presets from one computer to another then you can export all your security settings to an encrypted file using more protection export security settings you choose what you want to export from the list I'll choose to only export my security policies and what actions to take with each policy then click export you'll need to encrypt the file I'll enter a simple password and then sign it with a digital ID the file is saved with an acrobat security settings file extension and the file can be distributed to anyone else who providing they know the password can import it using more protection import security settings and by clicking import existing entries are updated new ones around it and revoked entries are removed if you're applying encryption regularly you can add the encrypt tool to your in quick Tools menu either by right-clicking it and choosing add to quick tools or just by dragging it into the quick tools bar in combination with presets protecting a document in Acrobat 10 is literally a one-click process

Channel: Adobe Acrobat

Views: 194,614

Keywords: Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Acrobat DC Tutorial, Adobe Acrobat Digital Signature, Adobe Acrobat Pro, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Adobe DC, Adobe Document Cloud, Adobe Sign Tutorial, How To Use Adobe Acrobat, Protect PDF Documents, Protection Panel, document management, document scanning, document workflow, future workplace

Id: mU9_lPL7Bb4

Length: 8min 23sec (503 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 01 2011