Security Setting &Number of people accessing portfolio at one time

Ordinarily, more than one person can have a portfolio open at one time. Portfolios are pretty much the same as ordinary PDFs in many respects. You can control access to the Portfolio using Policy Server. I don't know whether it will do exactly what you want, but you can give it a try at this website.

http://www.adobe.com/products/onlineservices/documentcenter/

Someone viewing the Portfolio in Reader would not be able to Add or Delete files, and ordinary security should keep someone with Acrobat Pro from doing the same thing. But I'm not sure on this point. You should give it a try.

I don't think you can keep users from filling out the forms in the Portfolio. If they are in there then they act pretty much like separate files, i.e., just like they would behave if opened from disk.

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

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[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

Then most important JavaScript Development tool in Acrobat
[url=http://www.pdfscripting.com/public/34.cfm#JSIntro][b]The Console Window (Video tutorial)[/b][/url]
[url=http://www.acrobatusers.com/tutorials/2006/javascript_console][b]The Console Window(article)[/b][/url]

Just using Acrobat it's not possible to prevent two people opening the PDF at the same time (unless you use extra software to limit access at the operating system level, and therefore the master copy of the file would have to be stored locally). DRM solutions such as Document Center will allow you to control *who* can open it, so you could issue an individual file to only one person, but if the file is made available to more than one user they can open it whenever they want. The reason is simple - without some extra plugins, there's no equivalent of "locking" the master file as there is in applications such as Word or InDesign, so your copy has no way to tell if the other person still has their copy open or not.

Adobe DC tracks "access" events, but doesn't use them to make sharing decisions. Also, locking files remotely is fraught with problems - if a user "books out" a file and then disconnects from the network, other users may be stuck in limbo until their session times out.

If you're creating a portfolio that users will open, then extract copies of member documents from, the whole DC route is a moot point anyway. DC was designed for Acrobat 8 and doesn't understand the idea of Portfolios - so those extracted copies are free from any control.