PDF Security

[Matt Klein]

Here is one for you guys...

So, I want to use the new PDF functionality in FileMaker to show my users a preview of a report. I want to do this using PDF instead of FileMaker's preview mode because the PDF is closer to, if not fully, WYSIWYG compared to FileMaker's preview mode. And yes, I am going to use PDFs to print this report as well.

This works great. Using the Save Records As PDF step in a script I can create the PDF and automatically open it. If I just want to print it, the Send Event step can be used to print it without any interaction by the user.

Also with the Save Records As PDF step, I can specify a password for the PDF. This is another great feature though it doesn't quite work the way I want it to and I am hoping that you guys have some ideas.

What I want to do is create the PDF with a password required to open it, but I want to be able to open it as soon as it is created without the user having to enter the password. In essence, I want to prevent users from opening the pdf without entering a password after it has been closed the first time. BTW, I delete the pdfs when the user closes the application.

So, I tried creating the PDF with a password required and the "Automatically Open File" box checked. The PDF gets created and opens automatically with out requiring a password. That's good. However, if the PDF is closed and re-opened by double-clicking it in the directory, it still opens without requiring a password.

It seems that when the "Automatically Open File" box is checked, the security options set are ignored when creating the PDF.

Any ideas?

Anyone know a way to pass the password to the PDF when it opens? I couldn't find a way to do this. If I could do this, I could create the PDF without the "Automatically Open File" box checked and then use the Send Event step to open the PDF while passing the password to it.

[digitaljunkie]

just a stupid suggestion but what about an external shell script that resets the Auto Open option or better still bump and external script to open the file with the password that way you don't have to worry about the Auto open preference option.

Just a thought, can't see why that wouldn't work.