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Scott, check out the following link & instructions I stumbled across by John TeSelle. I've found it extremely handy at our firm! It will add a couple menu items to your Document menu that will quickly allow you to flatten your comments so that they become uneditable. After flattening them, you can then add your security as you usually do and they can add additional comments to the PDF.NOTE: this will only work with textboxes or other non-dynamic comments. It will not work for pop-up sticky notes or other dynamic comments.

http://www.aecbytes.com/tipsandtricks/2006/issue2-acrobat.php

Hi sbouvia,

You could use a simple JavaScript to flatten the comments and stamp ( bake it into the content so it is no longer selectable). We offer a free toolbar button you can add to Acrobat so the flattening function is a one click operation. You can download the "Flatten Page Content Tool" from this page-
http://www.pdfscripting.com/public/65.cfm

Hope this helps,

Dimitri
WindJack Solutions
www.pdfscripting.com
www.windjack.com

It seems when I use the flatten tool in Adobe, I can still re-open the file after saving and still use the touch up text tool to change the information in the text box. Any ideas?

That'll always be the case unless you secure or certify the document - flattened annotations become part of the content, and the Acrobat touch-up tools are of course designed to allow you to edit that content.

In theory you could add the comments as bitmap images, so the touch-up tools couldn't edit them (but they could still delete them) - however converting stamps and comments into images isn't supported in Acrobat so you'd have to do it with a plugin or an external application.

Scott, as UVSAR mentioned, such tools are unfortunately going to be there for any Acrobat Pro user or above (I'm not sure about Acrobat Standard?). I even tried reprinting the flattened PDF to PDF again, and even then the tools can grab the text. There may not be a perfect solution, unfortunately.

HI Scott, I realize that this comes a little late, but I have a solution that I think would be perfect for you. I've spent the last year designing a web based commenting system for Acrobat & Reader for the construction industry that extends the capabilities of the commenting permissions for Shared Reviews. Basically you're able to have users register to the website, and you can then assign their permissions on a per-project basis. Users are unable to modify or change any comments except for their own and it's very secure. Best of all, you get 250MB of storage space for free. If you're interested, you can find out more here:http://idtplans.com/Products/idtplansReviewOnlinePlanReviewSoftware/tabid/118/Default.aspx