Internal Navigation Links Broken After Applying Protect PDF API

Dear Adobe Support Team,

I am using the Adobe PDF Services API to generate PDFs from HTML. The initial PDF correctly preserves internal navigation links, such as table of contents or index links pointing to specific sections within the document.

However, after applying the Protect PDF operation, the internal links no longer work in the protected PDF.

I have reviewed the documentation and tested multiple configurations, including:

• Allowing the EDIT_DOCUMENT_ASSEMBLY permission

• Changing the contentToEncrypt value to ONLY_EMBEDDED_FILES

• Using both AES_128 and AES_256 encryption algorithms

Despite these changes, the internal navigation fails after applying protection. The links work perfectly before the protection step.

Could you please confirm:

1. Is this a known limitation of the Protect API?

2. Is there a supported way to apply security while preserving internal navigation features?

3. Are there any best practices or planned updates to address this use case?

Preserving internal navigation is essential for our documents, even when security settings are applied.
I would appreciate your guidance on how best to proceed.