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I have a PDF for my camera's manual, and Adobe Reader won't let me print it (the print option is grayed out). SumatraPDF also does the same thing (it even says print denied). How does the PDF prevent itself from being printed? It seems that if the program can display it on the screen, then it can also print it. Maybe Adobe Reader respects the PDF not printing, but surely an open source PDF reader wouldn't be so restrictive. So is there something more to this than merely the PDF reader software respecting the PDF's request to not be able to be printed?

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The print permission is in the pdf file itself and is mostly used by Adobe products. Some products pay it attention, and some others print it anyway.
It is quite easy to remove.

See the article How To Unlock Adobe PDF Files, where it explains how to use Freeware PDF Unlocker to remove this and other passwords.

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It is not correct that print permissions are "only used by Adobe products". -- It is correc that "some productions pay it attention, and some others don't". – pipitas Mar 1 '11 at 22:01
@pipitas: Corrected : only -> mostly. – harrymc Mar 2 '11 at 6:06
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It's part of the settings when you save the PDF. You can also disallow text to be copied. There are software that allow you to bypass the restrictions.

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Nope. As you say, if it can be displayed then it can potentially be printed. It requires the cooperation of the reader in order to enact this.

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Do you know of a PDF reader that would always let me print? – Steven Feb 12 '11 at 8:46
Nope. But if Evince doesn't allow printing regardless then I'm sure you could hack it easily enough to change that. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Feb 12 '11 at 8:47
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@Steven you could edit your PDF file at this website: pdfpirate.org, or use a software that will enable select, copy and printing on restricted PDF documents. You could then print the "unlocked" PDF document on any PDF reader software. – galacticninja Feb 12 '11 at 8:56
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Evince has a GConf option to "bypass restrictions". – grawity Feb 12 '11 at 19:00
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