These forums are now Read Only. If you have an Acrobat question, ask questions and get help from one of our experts.

How to prevent saving of data?

Corey.Primeaux
Registered: Sep 28 2007
Posts: 5

I have used Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 with LiveCycle Designer to create a sample .pdf to be distributed via email or posted on our intranet page to be viewed with the Acrobat Reader. I am trying to prevent users from saving the data locally. I have tried digging through the security features but I am just not getting very far.
Does anyone have a example of how this might be done?

tedpadova
ExpertTeam
Registered: Dec 31 2005
Posts: 848
Hi Corey,

You can disable printing LCD forms by opening the Form Properties dialog box (File > Form Properties) and click the PDF Security tab. Check the box for "Use a password to restrict printing and editing of the document and its security settings." Click OK in the annoying warning dialog and you'll notice the default is set to restrict printing. You need to save your form from Designer before you'll get a dialog asking for a Permissions Password. Add your password and confirm it and save the file. That should do it.ted

The author of numerous books on Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator and the Adobe Creative Suite, and an international speaker on Adobe Acrobat, Ted Padova is a well-known PDF guru.

tedpadova
ExpertTeam
Registered: Dec 31 2005
Posts: 848
ooops. I think I was reading another post when I first responded to this. I see your question is not related to printing but saving data. Reader users won't be able to save the data unless you enable the form. I'm not sure if you can disable saving form data from Acrobat. I'm not aware of a soluton here.

ted

The author of numerous books on Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator and the Adobe Creative Suite, and an international speaker on Adobe Acrobat, Ted Padova is a well-known PDF guru.

ccooney
Registered: Mar 10 2011
Posts: 3
I too am looking for a way to ensure that form data cannot be saved locally... it works fine when end users are using Acrobat Reader, but if they have Acrobat Pro installed there doesn't seem to be any way to prevent saving the document to a new file... any suggestions would be greatly appreciated...
gkaiseril
Online
Expert
Registered: Feb 23 2006
Posts: 4307
You can use password security, except not all 3rd party programs respect this method. There is the LiveCycle Policy sever product and DRM services.

George Kaiser

ccooney
Registered: Mar 10 2011
Posts: 3
Thanks for the quick response George... I always use password security to restrict changes, etc but this doesn't seem to have any impact on whether the end user with access to Acrobat Pro can save the filled form with the data intact... these forms are intended to be used in a health care environment and, due to federal legislation regarding personal health information, I need to ensure that the end users cannot "Save" or "Save As" a copy of the original on unsecured PCs... am I missing something?
gkaiseril
Online
Expert
Registered: Feb 23 2006
Posts: 4307
What controls do you have over the paper file copies?

What controls do you have over the copying of paper forms?

Maybe you need better employee screening, training, and control.

George Kaiser

ccooney
Registered: Mar 10 2011
Posts: 3
My problem at this time does not regard paper forms and the copying of such... it concerns prevention of saving and electronic sharing of health info data... if you have a method for controlling 30,000+ employees I'd love to hear it... think I'll look elsewhere for answers...