Set Privileges on an Existing PDF File

Set privileges on an existing PDF file

Use this workflow when you need to change what users can do with an existing PDF.

Steps

1. Create a PdfFileSecurity instance.
2. Bind the source PDF with bindPdf.
3. Create a DocumentPrivilege object and configure the allowed actions.
4. Call the appropriate setPrivilege or trySetPrivilege overload.
5. Save the result if the update succeeds, then close the object.

Java examples

public static void setPdfPrivilegesWithoutPasswords(Path inputFile, Path outputFile) {
    PdfFileSecurity fileSecurity = new PdfFileSecurity();
    fileSecurity.bindPdf(inputFile.toString());
    DocumentPrivilege privilege = DocumentPrivilege.getForbidAll();
    privilege.setAllowPrint(true);
    fileSecurity.setPrivilege(privilege);
    fileSecurity.save(outputFile.toString());
    fileSecurity.close();
}

public static void setPdfPrivilegesWithPasswords(Path inputFile, Path outputFile) {
    PdfFileSecurity fileSecurity = new PdfFileSecurity();
    fileSecurity.bindPdf(inputFile.toString());
    DocumentPrivilege privilege = DocumentPrivilege.getForbidAll();
    privilege.setAllowPrint(true);
    privilege.setAllowCopy(false);
    fileSecurity.setPrivilege("user_password", "owner_password", privilege);
    fileSecurity.save(outputFile.toString());
    fileSecurity.close();
}

public static void trySetPdfPrivilegesWithoutException(Path inputFile, Path outputFile) {
    PdfFileSecurity fileSecurity = new PdfFileSecurity();
    fileSecurity.bindPdf(inputFile.toString());
    DocumentPrivilege privilege = DocumentPrivilege.getForbidAll();
    privilege.setAllowPrint(true);
    if (fileSecurity.trySetPrivilege("user_password", "owner_password", privilege)) {
        fileSecurity.save(outputFile.toString());
    } else {
        System.out.println("Setting privileges failed. Check passwords or document state.");
    }
    fileSecurity.close();
}