Acrobat Reader DC and Acrobat DC on RDS

[communicatiem26736141]

We have both Acrobat Reader DC and Acrobat DC installed on a RDS server. We have limited access to the Acrobat DC executable to one user since we own only one license for this product. We found out when people who have access to Acrobat Reader DC click the edit button, they are able to edit PDF documents.

Is there a way to fix this behavior?

[Amal.]

Hi There,

Apologies for the delay in response, as you are experiencing issues where people having access to Adobe Reader DC are able to edit the PDF documents.

This function is not available with Adobe Reader as you can not make permanent changes to text or images inside PDF files using Acrobat Reader. To edit the PDF files you need Adobe Acrobat DC software.

Adobe Reader, on the other hand, is a different application altogether which makes it easy to annotate PDF documents using Sticky notes, Type directly onto the page, highlight, underline, or use strikethrough tools, and draw on the screen with a free hand drawing tool.

For more information, you may refer to the help article in the link - Adobe Acrobat Reader DC FAQs

If you want to restrict people from making any comments on the PDF file or to add any text you may set the permission password for it.

• Go to Tools>Protect>Encrypt>Encrypt with a password.
• Click Yes.
• Under permissions>select restrict editing and printing of document>set the permission password.
• You may also refer to the help article in the link here for more information - Securing PDFS with passwords, Adobe Acrobat

Let us know if you need more help.

Regards,

Amal

[communicatiem26736141]

Hello Amal,

We have both applications installed on a RDS server. We restricted access to Acrobat DC to one user only.

All other people only have access to Acrobat Reader DC, but when they click on "Edit document" in Reader DC, they can edit the document.

Does this mean they automatically switch to Acrobat DC at that point (which they shouldn't be able to use in the first place) or is it possible Acrobat Reader uses Acrobat's edit functionality in the background?

Regards.

[Amal.]

Hi There,

Acrobat Reader in no way has the ability to edit the document even if you have Adobe Acrobat DC with the same email ID.

If you try to edit the document with Adobe Reader having the same email ID for Adobe Acrobat DC, you will get a pop-up asking you to switch the application to Adobe Acrobat DC, once you make the switch by clicking OK, then you would be able to edit the document.

Let us know if you need more help.

Regards,

Amal