PDF Computer files, what's safe to send?

[Danny Baronian]

When presenting files to clients I always provide files that give the basic information and dimensions in a format that does not allow the client, or anyone else, to modify the file. In the recent past, Adobe had touted the PDF format as the way to exchange files for everything from emailing to printing that can be locked or edited depending on how it's saved.

In Illustrator I've saved files as a PDF, followed the instructions including marking the check box that limits file modification.

After saving as a PDF file in illustrator, and opening the same saved file,I find it completely editable. Even files received from others that specifically said the files could not be altered, were fully editable in illustrator.

Short of saving files for the web, as in jpg files, how do others treat PDF files, and can they be saved in a way that cannot be modified? If not, what are the alternatives?

[Mike Jackson]

Danny,
I wish I knew the answer to your question. I have had the same problems and got the same results when saving the PDF files out of Illustrator.

I believe Danny also posted the question on the Adobe Forums, so maybe is someone there replies, he can pass it along here.

Mike Jackson

[Mike Jackson]

I had asked Tom at SignCraft Magazine about this issue a while back. He asked his computer guy and this is his response:

The easiest thing to do is to select the everything and under the Type menu choose Create Outlines. This will change all the text to shapes. This should be done on a copy as you will lose editing capability. If Illustrator doesn't let you create outlines then there is a font problem, one of your printer fonts is missing on a postscript type 1 font.

The next best thing would be to save it as an .eps file and distill it separately in Acrobat. Make sure the distiller is set to press quality and under fonts in settings - embed all fonts is checked and subset fonts is not checked.

You can access these settings when you make a pdf from Illustrator but it varies from version to version and system to system and I couldn't begin to tell him where to look for them.

[Danny Baronian]

Thank you,

I never got any feed back from the Adobe forum, but the suggestion of using Acrobat may be a good solution. It's not just the text I'm concerned about, but the whole document.

From all I've seen and done, regardless of what you do, PDF files saved in Illustrator can be opened as though it's the master file.

Tom's suggestion and directions for Acrobat may just do the trick.

Danny

[Mike Jackson]

Hi Danny,
It "should" be more simple. But I guess not!

If going through all the suggestions, you'd have your original Illustrator file saved so you could edit it if necessary and then the same file converted to curves and saved as EPS. After that, you'd need to know how to use, distill, and save files in Acrobat, creating yet another full file.

Oh well, I guess that is a necessary evil if going that way to prevent users from editing the files.

Mike