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Participating Frequently
January 27, 2017
Answered

PDF form printable but not saveable, even in Acrobat Pro?

  • January 27, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 5155 views

Hi, I'm working with people who need their PDF forms in a special way.

The persons who gets them should be able to fill in the forms and print them, but they should not be able to save them.

Now I thought I managed to do this and everything was fine, since my belief was that "most" people only have Acrobat Reader. But now I got a reply saying that if someone has Acrobat Pro, they can save it anyway.

So my question is simple; can I create a PDF form that no one else can save, even if they have Acrobat Pro?

Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer try67

OK, thanks, try67.

Is that very complicated or do you have the time to show me how I do that?


No, it's quite simple.

With the file open in Acrobat, go to Tools - JavaScript - Set Document Actions.

Select the Document Will Save item in the list and click on Edit.

Into the window that opens paste this code:

this.resetForm();

Click OK and save the file, and you're done.

1 reply

Bernd Alheit
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 27, 2017

Users with Acrobat Reader DC can also save the form.

Participating Frequently
January 27, 2017

OK, when it comes to free Acrobat readers I have only tried it in Acrobat Reader X, and there you can't save it since it's not saved as a reader extended PDF.

Bernd Alheit
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 27, 2017

For version X and older you must reader extend the PDF file.