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I need an open source solution to simply make any PDF unprintable. I know there's questions about editors, but I need this particular feature only and editing the content isn't a concern.

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    How do you stop someone from taking a screenshot and printing that?
    – Nifle
    Mar 22, 2010 at 16:01
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    Be aware that setting permissions on PDF documents like that is only kid-sister grade protection.
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Mar 22, 2010 at 16:53

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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I tried it quickly with pdftk: http://www.accesspdf.com/pdftk/

Use something like:

pdftk my.pdf output noprinting.pdf owner_pw MYSTRONGPASSWORD allow

The allow parameter has no argument (defaults to none). It seems, that you have to set some owner password (otherwise, printing won't be really disabled).

See the documentation in my link for more options!

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You can use the qpdf command tool.

qpdf input.pdf --encrypt "" "MY_PASSWORD" 256 --print=none -- output.pdf
  • For technical discussion of how PDF encryption works, see PDF Encryption.
  • To learn more about how to create encrypted files with qpdf, see QPDF Encryption.
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