Convert PDF to ReadOnly in browsers

Question

Can any one tell me how can i convert a PDF file to a format which does not have a copy /sve option in it in C# ? I want to show some pdf in browser where it should restrict users from downloading the PDF file.

Answer 1

PDF's are rendered on the client side using the reader app on the user's machine. You can't stop them from downloading it, unless you want them to not view the PDF.

You can convert the PDF into some other format and display it on your webpage as a non-pdf document, but that's a different story.

Answer 2

Any files that the user views are loaded to their computer. This included all images, pdf files, html whatever.

If you want to prevent downloading of the pdf, there are Flash and Java based pdf viewers. They show the content to the user, but user doesn't get the pdf file.

Answer 3

I have used iText PDF library for Java to prevent copy/paste and printing of generated PDF's. I see that there is an iTextSharp library for C#. Looking at the docs you would do the following to prevent copy/paste and printing. You can't prevent saving the file.

PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(input);
PdfEncryptor.Encrypt(reader, output, null, null, PdfWriter.ALLOW_MODIFY_CONTENTS, false);

Where output is a filestream for the new protected pdf.