How to programmatically impose printing restrictions/DRM on PDF for confidential documents using Microsoft .NET

Question

I came across stackoverflow from a podcast recommendation and I'm very impressed. This is my first post. I'm a Microsoft .net developer and I'm on a project with following requirements.

1) Confidential PDF document should be displayed to user with NO OPTION TO PRINT AT ALL. The reason to do this is the PDF's are for view only and users are not supposed to print/archive/distribute the confidential data

We have a bunch of PDF's (100's or even 1000's and more to come) that needs to be displayed like this and I'm looking for a pragrammatic solution that can be done on the fly.

I'm ware of the security tab in Acrobat Professional but that needs opening each and every file in acrobat and putting restrictions. Also new files that gets created everyday is a big problem

Is there anyway I can introduce DRM into the PDF's programmatically

Is there a good .NET API that this DRM job on the fly when an open PDF is requested and has to be presented in a restricted format with no printing available?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The answer to your question is a legal one, not a technical solution. Even if they have to take a picture of the computer screen, they'll be able to print out those PDFs. The PrtScn works well too.

If you introduce DRM, you're just going to upset them and fight a losing battle. Your best bet is to talk to management and have them work up a legal solution, and not a software solution.

Answer 2

I have used a commercial product to manipulate PDF files from .NET called PDF4NET. It can open an existing PDF and apply security. You may find other commercial or open source alternatives as well.

Update:

I am not aware of any open source projects in .NET that will allow you to do this, and a bit of searching the interwebs did not turn up anything. I am including some links to some projects in other languages that might help (Java, C++). But, PDF4NET is $500 per developer with royalty-free runtime. That is pretty cheap compared to even a few hours of searching and trying out alternatives, and someone is on the hook to fix the bugs or support you if you get in a scrape.