Topic Title

To all,

Over the last few years, I’ve seen a considerable downturn in the need to out put our plans to hard copy prints. Local authorities are quite happy to receive plans for Planning approval applications & the same for Building Regulation approvals, even our clients just request one or two prints. Builders also seem to accept plans in pdf format for tendering.

In this regard before you know it, your plans are all over the place & even unintended recipients who crib your hard work. What I’m ultimately driving at is, can DataCAD in the not too distant future incorporate a form of pdf protection, i.e. with options set to: view pdf’s only, view & print only & with a password option for these two settings. I was also wondering if others use some other form of software to do this...?? However to do this within DataCAD would be the ultimate choice for me.

Over & out,
Clayton.

I feel your pain Clayton. However, I think that protecting PDFs may not solve your problems because they can be easily copied anyway if you are that way inclined by at least using one of the following:
* Screen clipping software. Some of them are very good and produce high quality copies; or
*Some PDF editors will let you open protected PDFs.
Probably need some form of booby trap for when PDFs are pirated.

You can put everything on one layer, in one colour.
You can use a pdf printer to print as only a bitmap file (no raster components) and use the lowest resolution acceptable. You can also put some copy protection/security on when you print the pdf such as Content copying, Printing, Document Assembly ,... not allowed.
Of course some one can then use a bitmap raster conversion program to copy it from a high resolution screen grab...

Thanks to all on this one & the DC D-bug folks.

From what I gather, not many bother with any protection to pdf's & those that do, seem to use ADOBE ACROBAT STANDARD, but at £280.00 I can't muster up my brain cells to buy this product for messing around with pdf's, given quite a lot of software these days' can do basic pdf-in.

I still prefer the idea that we could have some pdf protection direct from the creation within DC as a basic first line of defence, despite the laid back thinking that if someone wants to copy your plans they'll find a way to crack into the file anyway or by other means.

I wonder though if this simple idea is perhaps too costly to actually implement for DC HQ.....

Over & out
Clayton.

For a more cost effective option to Adobe, check out Tracker's PDF Xchange editor Pro. The free version I don't think has the security options but might check that out first. You can demo pro for free to see if that meets your needs. Their forum is pretty good to for support questions. Been using them for about 5 years now. Great products.