We create and send several PDF reports with reportcaster.
Since this information is rather confidential the management has asked me if it would be possible to prevent users to print (and resend) these reports.
Adobe has that functionality, but can I build that into a report we create with WebFocus?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kerry,

I remember talking to someone at IBI a while back about sending secure PDF documents (cannot be modified) This isn't exactly whay you're looking for, but it is added functionality that Adobe provides that a WF PDF report did not support. The person said that many of the advanced features like these that Adobe supports would be added into WF's capabilities, but I haven't seen anything yet (I'm also not on the current version.) You probably want to open this as an NFR with techsupport.

Frank,

Just chop off their hands or disable any printers attached to their machines and remove their mail client!

As they're sent the documents, by their very nature the files are electronic and as such you're not going to be able to do much about it - I think!

T

Tony

that was my umnofficial advice to the management too, but if they do not have mail, how would those salesmen receive the report....

In fact this is a functionality offered by Adobe.
If you do protect a PDF this way it is even not possible to grab a part from the screen I'm told.
See this site PE http://www.pdf-tools.com/asp/home.asp?lang=en

Very interesting Frank, it would interesting to know what you find out - if has a great deal of potential.

T

I think Tony is basically right when he says that the files by there very nature are ultimately publicly accessible. You may not be able to copy from them or to print them, but sending the file onward using email is still possible (although the recipient may not be able to read it, lacking the password).
But screen-grabbing using tools like snagit will still be possible and will give you the exact contents of the document as an image.
The most secure way, always preventing information from becoming public, is not sending it. But since that is not an option ....

Paranoia rules the world.

You do not even need to be on the PC, just looking over someone’s shoulder.

Whip out the mobile and you have a copy.

And yes I know a lot of sites that ban mobiles.

JG I'm not in the position to discuss this mater with the management. You are right it should be better if everybody was honest and prisons were empty (what is a prison....??)
But in the real world it is not. We need virus protection and we also need passwords and secure login codes.
Everybody wants more and better and quicker information, but we do not want to show that information to the whole world. Our company is a listed company, knowledge about these key figures is valuable and SOX and other official organizations are looking over our shoulders if we at least try to be careful with our figures.

It seems however that IBI did not build this, I will try to bring up a NFR, but if we are the only company for this I'm afraid it will last forever.....

Frank:
Firstly, just a note that the securityoptions you mentioned (via the link) are not from Adobe, but from a third party software company.
Anyway, since the issue is security, do you absolutely have to send the PDF document as an attachment to the email? How about FTP to a secure location, and sending via email a URL to the file? Of course that implies a unique file name (or else you clobber the old file). If that were an option, you could designate the FTP target folder as a 'watched' folder that will automatically encrypt the PDF document.

Diptesh

That's a smart option.
I'll discuss this with our security officer and the receivers of the reports.
The problem is that they get several burst reports, so they are individual different and need therefor to have different names (I know that can be done).

There are a number of third party CLI tools (including I believe one from Adobe themselves) that will allow you to change the security "features" of a pdf.

It might be possible to use ReportCaster post processing to secure your pdfs using one of these tools prior to distribution.

However, it should be noted that prior to the latest version of the PDF format, these "restrictions" were also reasonably easy to bypass too (for example the XPDF viewer has a compile time flag that can be set to ignore general PDF security where no password has been set, allowing for copying and printing of "secured" PDFs).

If your company has Acrobat available then you can set up "watch" folders that accept PS files and creates PDF files that can optionaly be signed or protected. Not sure how this would work with ReportCaster. Can you get RC to create a PS but distribute a PDF?

Cheers

Stu

We opened an NFR 18-20 months ago requesting some advanced control capabilities for Adobe PDF output and we have not seen anything add to the product so far.

The FTP idea got me thinking.

Years ago – I believe it was with “FOCUS 6” under DOS/Windows -- We used to create FORMAT PS (Post Script reports), for Adobe Distiller pick up .From PS file it made PDF, and stored it in another folder..

I have not done much with the newer versions of Adobe Distiller but it may include the security options. If Distiller does have the necessary security then you could send a link to the PDF distiller output.

This seems like a lot of work because of a lack of trust, although not trusting employees is common concern. When you have a solution could you give us a high level overview of the solution?