Participant

Answered

How to set a PDF expiry date ?

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
February 28, 2018
3 replies
56886 views

This seems to be a common problem and I cannot find an answer.

I send out a lot of sensitive docs in PDF form that I would like to ensure are not able to be open or read after a certain time. How do I achieve that ?

I have a subscription to the Document Cloud.

Thanks

Correct answer Dov Isaacs

DRM (“Digital Rights Management”) is not a built-in tool in Acrobat or Reader. There are (typically very expensive) third party tools for this that most often require an administrative server. That having been said, PDF files using such “protection” may not necessarily be protected or be even readable in non-Adobe PDF viewers.

- Dov

P

pdf_7385

Participant

What you can do is share an html file that acts as a hyperlink to your PDF document. The recipient can download the file and open it the way they would any other file on their computer. When the link expires, they will no longer be able to access the underlying PDF document. If you are not a developer there is an app, Salepager, that can do this for you.

try67

Community Expert

Once you open the PDF file and save it, you no longer need the HTML file, though.

try67

Community Expert

I recommend no one use this website. See my review of it here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/Acrobat/how-to-prevent-pdf-files-save-locally-or-forward-the-to-anyone/td-p/10376802

In short, the protection it offers is easily overcome and it is not clear who (or what) is behind it, that you're giving access to your sensitive files to...

try67

Community Expert

DRM protection is the only reliable way.

M

mike1964XAuthor

Participant

Is DRM an inbuilt feature of the product or it a 3rd party tool/product ? If 3rd party can you recommend a product to accomplish this ?

Dov IsaacsCorrect answer

Legend

DRM (“Digital Rights Management”) is not a built-in tool in Acrobat or Reader. There are (typically very expensive) third party tools for this that most often require an administrative server. That having been said, PDF files using such “protection” may not necessarily be protected or be even readable in non-Adobe PDF viewers.

- Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

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