CREATING READ ONLY PDFS FROM EXISTING PDFS

[RANDALL S. D.0D4C]

How can I make an existing pdf file a "read only" file?

[Test Screen Name]

What exactly do you mean by "read only". The phrase is thrown around, to mean a number of things, some of which don't even exist. I imagine you want to stop something or other, but what?

[RANDALL S. D.0D4C]

The SBA requires that all documents filed with any PPP Application be "Read-Only" and rejects them out of hand if they are not so identified. I suppose they mean whan they receive the PDF it will be somehow clearly marked as "read only" and functionally not allow any alteration, only viewing.

[Test Screen Name]

Hmm. Files certainly won't say "read only" because that isn't a standard PDF term. There's no technical definition of Read Only, and there are a number of things they could mean. Can you link to a page where they give any rules or specifications of what they require?

[RANDALL S. D.0D4C]

There was no specificity as to that "read only" requirement, but apparently they meant a PDF/A format.

[Dov Isaacs]

There was no specificity as to that "read only" requirement, but apparently they meant a PDF/A format.

There is absolutely nothing about PDF/A files that make them “read only” PDF files. What is true is that there is a mode in both Adobe Acrobat Reader and Adobe Acrobat Standard & Pro Preferences=>Documents=>PDF/A View Mode that allows you to set this software to effectively treat PDF files conforming to the PDF/A specification as non-modifiable, but that is effectively “advisory” only; change that option from Only for PDF/A documents to Never and such protection is gone. Most non-Adobe PDF readers have no such setting at all and there is no special “special protection” for PDF/A files.

In terms of the SBA (I assume you mean the “Small Business Administration”), it is very unclear what they mean at all in terms of “read only.” You can “protect” a PDF file with a number of restrictions using Document Properties=>Security=>Security Method and setting Security Method to Password Security. You can obviously require a password to simply open the PDF file, but that in and of itself doesn't make the PDF file “read only” in any way. If you enable the Restrict editing options, you can set restrictions that effectively make the document “read only” (and changeable from that only with a password). The problem here is that non all PDF processing problems obey these restrictions.

Bottom line is that unless you use an expensive (third party) security add-on to Acrobat, there really is no such thing as a “read only” PDF file. You really need to ask the SBA what they think a “read only” PDF file is. You might find that they really don't know themselves! 😉

By the way, it is often non-trivial to convert a general PDF file to comply with the PDF/A standard. PDF/A (there are a number of versions - PDF/A-2, PDF/A-3, and PDF/A-4 - and compliance levels within same) has numerous requirements related to font embedding and encoding, color management, transparency usage, etc.

Good luck!

[JR Boulay]