Trust and privilege in Acrobat scripts

Learn about the various security mechanisms that relate to Acrobat JavaScript and how to create trusted environments.

By Thom Parker – June 11, 2015

 

Have you ever run a script that reported a “NotAllowedErrorr: Security settings prevent access to this property or method.”? This can be very frustrating, but in order to keep Acrobat safe from malicious hacking, Adobe has locked it up pretty tight, and this is especially true for scripting. Acrobat simply will not allow some JavaScript operations to be run from “un-trusted” code. But of course, it is precisely the types of operations that that may pose a risk that are the most useful for automating processes and other advanced scripting tasks. This article explains the various security mechanisms that relate to Acrobat JavaScript and shows how to create trusted environments for running code that Acrobat would not normally allow.