I know there plenty of utilities on the interweb for doing this, but does anyone know if it can be done in Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop?

The conversion is to convert the PDF vectors to rasters so folk can't unpick them and derive the underlying data. Any utilities to do this to a PDF without having to do the conversion suggested?

TIA
Geoff

I'm pretty sure you can enable security on a pdf to stop import of said pdf into illustrator, etc.

Maybe create a droplet to batch convert the pdfs to the same security settings…quite interested myself now, will have a play around and shout if I find anything useful.

As far as I'm aware PDFs don't store any data as vectors….. it's all raster. But I may well be wrong! As you say there are a number of apps that will batch convert PDF to JPG but don't know if that's any good for you.

As far as I'm aware PDFs don't store any data as vectors….. it's all raster. But I may well be wrong! As you say there are a number of apps that will batch convert PDF to JPG but don't know if that's any good for you.

PDFs come in both Raster and Vector formats, depending upon where the original data has come from i.e. Raster from Photoshop, or Vector from Illustrator.

Vector is generally lower in filesize and scalable without losing quality, so I would think vector pdf would be the best medium to keep the documents in, rather than converting to PS?

OK, it can be done very easily and quickly if you have Acrobat professional. It will stop import into Photoshop/Illustrator and hence protect your contents from someone's grubby mitts. It will keep the vector data so the filesize will remain the same without losing quality.

If you have Acrobat Professional I will run through it, otherwise will spare the 5 min key bashing typing it out!

🙂

photoshop will do it, the batch processing element is called "actions" you have to open its window from the windows menu first then on the bottom bar click "create new action" it will automatically start recording, just make sure you press stop when you've finished.

Or as above if you want the added level of security and have acrobat pro.

flipiddy – I've got Acrobat 9 Pro. I'd be greatful if you could run it by me. I could PM you an example if it would be useful. Best wishes, Geoff

No probs Geoff. Hope you're sitting comfortably 🙂

In Acrobat Pro go to Advanced>Document Processing>batch processing.

You should have a popup window called batch sequences.

Click the button called 'New Sequence' and give it a name when prompted

A new panel will appear – Click on 'Select Commands' and scroll down until you get to an option saying 'Security' on the left hand side. Then click 'Add'. You can include any other options from the list in the same way (such as watermark) to run at the same time as the Security settings.

Click on the grey triangle next to Security, which should have appeare d in the Right Hand Panel. A drop down called 'Security Method:None' will appear. Highlight this and then click 'edit'.

A new pane will appear with a dropwdown list. Select password security from the dropdown. This will reveal all of the security options for the PDF.

Check the box 'Restrict Editing and Printing'. Low-res printing will be okay for most purposes. You will can enter a password and so on. You also have the option to restrict changes to the pdf, so might be worth selecting 'none' for this.

When you have okayed the settings and then closed the panel behind, you will be returned to the original 'Edit Batch Sequence' screen. Under '1. select sequence of commands' you should now see 'security' has been added with your personal settings.

Under option 2. 'Run Commands on' you can select the folder with all of your pdf files in and 3. 'Select Output Location' is fairly self explanatory.

When finished this has set up a preset, so you can OK it and return to the main batch sequence menu. Select your preset and 'Run Sequence' and that should be it.

Hope that wasn't too much waffle. Drop me a line andrew_brough(at)hotmail.co.uk if there's anything.

Andrew, many thanks for this. I'll try it over the next couple of days and let you know how I get on. Geoff

Andrew, thanks again for this – I've used a variation on your workflow incorporating flattening the layers, to prevent the individual layers being captured. Best wishes, Geoff

No probs Geoff. Happy to help out 🙂