Limit PDF printing to one copy?

[sonofmrsnak]

Thought I'd resurrect this topic from a couple years ago to see if anything has changed.

I'd like to restrict printing of a PDF coupon to one or perhaps a defined number of copies once a user has the PDF downloaded.

There is one company that sells a program to do this (Safeguard) but they have priced it ridiculously.

There is an online subscription service (FileOpen Systems) that circumvents having the PDF downloaded so that the user can only print a defined number (might be the best solution), but was hoping Adobe either may have added this feature or a simple plugin exists to do this.

[Dave Merchant]

It's impossible. Even if software were to restrict the number of times a user could press the Print button on a menu, it's not permitted for that software to control the operating system tasks (such as the printer driver), so the user can change the "number of copies" in the driver to whatever they want, or print to file and send that file to any number of other users.

Some companies have attempted to take control over the OS for copy protection (notably Sony) and have faced worldwide legal action.

[sonofmrsnak]

Thanks Dave, 

So how does Safeguard get around this?

[Steve Werner]

Never heard of it. Based on looking at their website, it looks like a Windows product. You might ask in the Acrobat Windows forum.

[sonofmrsnak]

Ran across LockLizard in another forum that mentioned Mac compatibility.

Besides the screenshots, it looks suspiciously Windows. 😉

[Dave Merchant]

PDF Safeguard does *not* make PDF files - it reads a PDF file and exports a PDC file - their proprietary format which can only be opened in their own viewer (which has a very restricted set of features compared to Adobe products). Despite that it's possible to bypass any defined limit on the number of printouts that can be made - no matter what the file format, the only way to control what happens once the data has been handed to the OS printer driver is to install a rootkit, and rootkits are illegal. Even if you were to limit the number of copies generated by the viewing application, a user can simply print the file and run it through a photocopier. If they want an unsecured electronic version, they can scan and OCR the printout (as many a book publisher knows to their cost).

If a document is really that valuable, do what government agencies do - either don't allow printing in the first place (for example by using Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management, which has never been cracked), or restrict distribution of the file so it can only be opened on computers within a secure location, where someone can physically check each page coming out the printer. DRM solutions such as LiveCycle and Locklizard do have advantages for control of the electronic files themselves, but no amount of DRM can control what someone does with a sheet of paper.

[sonofmrsnak]

I understand how Safeguard works (besides priced out of reason) and the other program appear to also require a plugin to be installed on the viewer's computer. That can get ugly.

I was trying to come up with a simple deterrent to a user downloading and printing more than one coupon for a pet food company we do work for. I do realize that just about everything can be breached, but wanted to try and deter all but the most determined.

I do have it set so that an IP address can only access it once, but short of eventually implementing a more extensive coupon delivery program (in the works), was hoping for a quick and easy solution that Adobe might have.

[try67]

Let's say you were able to achieve this for a certain file.

What's stopping them from downloading the file again, overwriting the original, and printing it again? Or making 100 copies of the same file and printing each one of them once? The solution needs to lay elsewhere.

[sonofmrsnak]

As mentioned, although anything can be circumvented, was hoping to get ideas from the best and brightest here on simple deterrents.

If coupons can be coded individually, it would be easier to track the abusers (generally a store that prints these and then hands them out to everyone). This is what I have some people working on. This would be the ideal solution.

[try67]

Here's one way of doing it:

Place a large white text form field over the entire page, call it "HideBox", and set it to be hidden.

Create another hidden text form field with the value 0, call it "PrintCounter".

Add this as the WillPrint code:

if (getField("PrintCounter").value!=0) {

     app.alert("This file has already been printed once!");

     getField("HideBox").display = display.noView;

} else {

     getField("PrintCounter").value = 1;

}

If the user tries to print the form more than once, it will print a blank page. As I said before, there are many way to circumvent this "protection", though...

Of course, you will have to enable the Extended Reader Rights so that the users could save the modified file once it's been printed...

[sonofmrsnak]

Place a large white text form field over the entire page, call it "HideBox", and set it to be hidden.

Create another hidden text form field with the value 0, call it "PrintCounter".

Add this as the WillPrint code:

if (getField("PrintCounter").value!=0) {

     app.alert("This file has already been printed once!");

     getField("HideBox").display = display.noView;

} else {

     getField("PrintCounter").value = 1;

}

If the user tries to print the form more than once, it will print a blank page. As I said before, there are many way to circumvent this "protection", though...

Of course, you will have to enable the Extended Reader Rights so that the users could save the modified file once it's been printed...

Very interesting solution. This can be done in Acrobat 9?

[try67]

Yes.

[Dave Merchant · Accepted solution]

I'd say in that situation, a static PDF is not your solution. It's far easier to generate a uniquely-coded "ticket" using conventional web programming (PHP, etc.), and while it's just as impossible to control print quantities, you wouldn't care if the serial number only worked once. If the end result has to be a PDF, then there are powerful (and free) libraries for PHP, Java etc. that a website can use to construct a dynamically-generated PDF file per request - such as TCPDF. All the major sites that use coupons generate them using these methods, so the instance of the coupon is meaningless, it's the data on it that matters.

I was trying to come up with a simple deterrent to a user downloading and printing more than one coupon for a pet food company we do work for. I do realize that just about everything can be breached, but wanted to try and deter all but the most determined.

I do have it set so that an IP address can only access it once, but short of eventually implementing a more extensive coupon delivery program (in the works),

was hoping for a quick and easy solution that Adobe might have.

[sonofmrsnak]

I'd say in that situation, a static PDF is not your solution. It's far easier to generate a uniquely-coded "ticket" using conventional web programming (PHP, etc.), and while it's just as impossible to control print quantities, you wouldn't care if the serial number only worked once. If the end result has to be a PDF, then there are powerful (and free) libraries for PHP, Java etc. that a website can use to construct a dynamically-generated PDF file per request - such as TCPDF. All the major sites that use coupons generate them using these methods, so the instance of the coupon is meaningless, it's the data on it that matters.

This is along the idea of what we're currently looking at.