Participant

Answered

How to set a PDF expiry date ?

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
February 28, 2018
3 replies
56920 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 ?

C

crispinr2878402

Participant

It is impossible to really “bake this into the basic product” since it involves a serious amount of expensive, complex software that is beyond the scope of a desktop product. (Adobe does have a server-based DRM produce, LiveCycle, but it is very expensive and complex to deploy.)

- Dov

Expiring PDF documents would be a game-changer for a lot of people in a lot of industries. It is not impossible, just tricky. Spotify, Apple Music, all the streaming services do this.

It would be useful for training companies and anyone else selling intellectual property to be able to grant a license to content that expires and can be renewed.

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