Obfuscating email addresses in Acrobat

You could use the redaction tools in Acrobat to redact the email addresses, if that's what you're referring to.

For example: http://blogs.adobe.com/spartacusacrobat/2009/02/redaction_has_been_hitting_the.php

You will have to have version 8 professional or better. Thom Parker has written a JavaScript tutorial about using the Batch Processing to redact a given text string.

Thanks to both of you for your response.

I tried redacting
some [at] some [dot] com to some@s... .comWhen I clicked on the link, after saving and reopening the document, it first attempted to open a web page mailto:some [at] s [dot] com and then opened my email program some [at] s [dot] com.I also tried a hyperlink in Word and converted to PDF. After redacting it didn't work at all. In fact, I didn't get the finger pointer indicating there was a link available.

Thanks,
MauiNick

You may have to turn off the automatic URL recognition in Acorbat.

Thanks. I'll try that.

So you want to delete the actual address, but still have it work as a link?
The user will still be able to read the address in the email that will open when they click the link.

That's correct. I'm just trying to obfusate the address in the PDF because they are stored on our web site and are searchable by bots. If the visitor clicks on the link it's not a problem for them to see the email address.

Thanks,
MauiNick

In that case, you can't. A link destination has to be stored inside the PDF in plain text, even if it's a Javascript function that calls the mailto: action when you click something. In that respect a PDF is no different to a web page - the only way to stop bots reading the links is to insert them as images and make your reader look at the page and type the address in by hand.