Maximum Limits

[Former Community Member]

Hi there



Does anyone know if it is possible to limit the number of times a Reader Extended PDF form can be "Saved As"?



For example, could you specify during processing that a form could only be "Saved As" five (5) times then the rights are discontinued?



Apologies, I'm not a developer - just doing some research!



Chris

[Robert_Hirst]

Well since Acrobat can do Save As, disabling the ability to save in Reader Extensions will merely stop people without Acrobat from saving as a new file name.



And how do you detect if someone copies a file, then does a save as on the copy, and should this come from the total save as, or are you just trying to restrict the number of save as operations on a certain tree. Does the save operation become disabled when the limit has been reached too?



I would think that in addition to Reader Extensions, you'd need Policy Server/Rights Management ES, as this provides server-side manipulation of permissions after a document is distributed. But I don't think there is a distinction between save and save as operations, all you see in the log is "Modify Document" events whenever someone selects save or save as on a policy protected document (assume they have modify rights to begin with).



I'm sure you could limit the number of Modify Document events for a particular document/user, if that's any use. It would be much easier to achieve with Rights Management ES, but should still be possible in version 7.

[Former Community Member]

Thanks R



To try & answer some of your questions...



" Well since Acrobat can do Save As, disabling the ability to save in Reader Extensions will merely stop people without Acrobat from saving as a new file name."

That's what I was thinking!



"And how do you detect if someone copies a file, then does a save as on the copy and should this come from the total save as...?"

I was thinking of some kind of randomly generated UID embedded in the PDF metadata (by RE) which interacts with the individual computer & still adheres to the set limit - could that be done?



"...or are you just trying to restrict the number of save as operations on a certain tree?"

Sorry R, I don't understand that!



"Does the save operation become disabled when the limit has been reached too?"

Yes, but the user is pre-warned of this event...somehow!



Great talking to you!



Cheers



Chris

[Robert_Hirst]

>>>>"And how do you detect if someone copies a file, then does a save as on the copy and should this come from the total save as...?"

>>I was thinking of some kind of randomly generated UID embedded in the PDF metadata (by RE) which interacts with the individual computer & still adheres to the set limit - could that be done?



And what about if they copy it to another computer?



By tree I mean the different branches of the same file (say someone does Save As twice from original document, producing copya and copyb)... if the limit was stored in the document, then the tree would look like this (save operations remaining shown in brackets)

doc (5 remain)

    /   \

   /     \

copya(4) copyb(4)

  |       |

  |       |

copya(3)  copyb(3)

if the limit was stored on a server, it would look more like:

doc (5 remain)

    /   \

   /     \

copya(4) copyb(3)

  |       |

  |       |

copya(2)  copyb(1)

Anyway, either way, to the best of my knowledge it's not something that you can achieve with Reader Extensions (it just turns on some Acrobat features in Reader, but doesn't allow limits on how often those features are used), but the method shown in the second diagram may be possible using Rights Management ES.



>>>>"Does the save operation become disabled when the limit has been reached too?"

>>Yes, but the user is pre-warned of this event...somehow!

There might be a better way, but if you did use a server based permissions system like Rights Management, you could probably write a quick web service, and do a look up on the PDF form to query the number of save operations remaining.

[Former Community Member]

Thanks R



"And what about if they copy it to another computer?"

Some you win, some you lose - I don't think, for the most part, they'd be that savvy!



I'll have to do some research into the RM solution but you've been a great help to me, R, & it's much appreciated!



Cheers



Chris