"Restrict Editing"-like option that works with flattenPages()?

This is an old post, but I wanted to follow up or acrchival purposes for anyone else coming across this since I've gotten this to work. This is without using flattenPages(), though I can't make much more sense of it anymore since it's been so long. Hope it helps. 🙂

Button action:

• Mouse up, Exacute a menu item
• Run a JavaScript
  • var fields = ["Field Name 1", "Field Name 2"]; for (var i in fields) { var f = this.getField(fields[i]); if (f==null) { console.println("ERROR! Can't find: " + fields[i]); continue; } f.readonly = true; }
• Run a JavaScript
  • event.target.fillColor = color.white; this.getField("Save").display = display.hidden; app.execMenuItem("SaveAs");

One method for flattening that gets around security and rights restrictions is to print the PDF to a file. Basically re-frying it, which while not recommended for best quality, will do the trick.

Once you've restricted modifying the PDF, flattenPages won't work since it changes the document and you've secured the file to prevent exactly that... and it'd never work for you in Reader because Reader can't modify the PDF in that way.

Do you need to flatten the file or do you just need to prevent changing the filled in data at some point when the user determines that they are done filling it. You don't want to attach such a script to the willSave action because the user may not be done but may want to save their work... at least not without prompting.

If you don't need to actually flatten the fields, just set them all to read-only based on some action. With the file secured, they become uneditable.