Export ID files as PDF for customers, editing in AI should not be possible

Hello all, thank you very much for your answers.

I have now found a solution: I don't create the file with Indesign but with Illustrator. I then open the AI file with Photoshop. This reduces all the layers to one and I can save it as a PDF. That's good enough for me. The individual images in the file can no longer be used so easily, they would have to be cropped first. And the vector paths can no longer be edited.

Unfortunately, both Steve and Bob are right. It can seem either crazy or obvious, depending on your level of knowledge, but there is almost no way to lock or copy-protect an electronic document, even thirty-odd years on in the game.

PDF in particular is an almost zero-security format. You can lock and password protect it against opening and content copying, and that will keep most users from casually getting into the content,but getting around those locks is as simply as using a reader that doesn't support the security features, or even running it through a simple app to disconnect the security ("cut the padlock," so to speak). There are schemes to make PDF a viable secure format for things like textbooks, but it takes a very elaborate server-based system with extremely high initial costs, well out of the range of all but major publishers. And even those are not 100% secure.

The only working alternative is EPUB, which can be secured somewhat better, but is a difficult format to work with and does not have the simplicity and reliability of PDF.

The only reasonably secure e-book format around is Amazon's Kindle, which is secure enough to base a commercial publishing empire upon, but still not a 100% solution against copying content.

So, a bit less grumpily than Bob, I have to concur: don't do a publishing project that requires "locked" content in an electronically distributed document. The short answer is that it can't be done. Even after thirty-ish years.

I'll be more blunt than Steve.

There is absolutely no way to lock those files. If you're that concerned, don't bother with this project.

There's no guaranteed way of locking a PDF file. You can use Acrobat to lock a file but there are always ways of "breaking it."

To create an RGB color space, when exporting as Print PDF, in the Output tab, set Color Conversion: Convert to Destination. For Destination, choose an sRGB Profile: