Setting up copy protection in PDF export

[influxx]

Hi guys

I'm relatively new to Affinity products, but long time (disgruntled) Adobe user.

One thing I did with my Illustrator projects was set up copy protection when exporting to PDF. Just to prevent the raw text data from being easily plagiarized.

I tried doing this with Designer (see attached photo) but I don't quite understand the implementation of the Export panel settings. I also tried printing to PDF with security options (see photo).

The exports I have done with password security turned on are NOT protected in Preview. With the export method there is no encryption at all, with the print method there is encryption but its incorrect/ineffective.

I'm on a MacOS Catalina system, but can test on a Windows 10 PC if need be.

Does anybody else set up PDF exports with copy protection? If so, how? Is there a shortcoming in Preview, as I cant seem to get any password protection from any other PDF apps to work in it.

 

[R C-R]

I do not use this feature so this could be wrong, but in your last screenshot you do not have "Require password to open document" enabled, nor do you have anything in the Password: field just below it. I think you must enable that & enter a password there for this to work as you expect.

[influxx]

On 12/17/2024 at 1:44 PM, R C-R said:

I do not use this feature so this could be wrong, but in your last screenshot you do not have "Require password to open document" enabled, nor do you have anything in the Password: field just below it. I think you must enable that & enter a password there for this to work as you expect.

Thanks. This is true because, as I stated in the original post, I dont want to limit usability to legitimate users, but I do want to limit copy/paste and editing of the data.

I can confirm that the security functions do indeed work if I restrict total access to the file if I add use a file open password. But then, the passwords need to be different. The app throws an error if the open and copy/print paswords are the same. Which to me is just terrible UI/UX. I would never force my clients to have to remember not ONE but TWO passwords just to use my files. Its ludicrous. Very strange functionality. I cant think of a use case where requiring two separate passwords would be necessary.

Anyway, thats by the by. Is there a bug report or feature wish list I can add this to?

Some things I'm starting to really miss from Illustrator that seem like no brainers