Adobe VBA Reference to password protect a PDF

[leannemurphy]

Hi everyone,

I am able to export MS Office files to PDF via VBA, no problem. However, as Microsoft don't give an option to password protect the PDF using VBA I am now looking to the Acrobat VBA reference for this. I have Acrobat Pro on my PC, so have access to the Acrobat References. However, I'm on version 9, not 10, and can't seem to find much information online!

Does anyone know the code to utilise the Acrobat reference in order to password protect a PDF? It could password protect an existing PDF or the Acrobat code could also create the PDF from an Excel/PowerPoint file, I don't mind which route.

Thanks,
Leanne

 

[arnelgp]

you can use a Command line pdftk to password protect the pdf:
linux mint - How to set password for pdf files? - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange

 

[Mylton]

Good Morning
I know that there are N ways to crack passwords in pdf files.
by chance that way these passwords would be circumvented too?
Or is there a way to avoid this?
Thanks

 

[arnelgp]

there will always be crackers for any apps.

 

[Mylton]

Thank information
Obrigado pela dica.

 

[Jason Lee Hayes]

Good Morning
I know that there are N ways to crack passwords in pdf files.
by chance that way these passwords would be circumvented too?
Or is there a way to avoid this?
Thanks

It's worth noting there's absolutely no guaranteed way of protecting anything digital wether this be hardware or software. I spent many years working with companies to do just this and all you are really doing is buying time before an exploit is found. Back in the old 8bit days I worked on a very successful LensLock protection which was an out of the box project involved looking at an image on screen through a dedicated lens that came with the software title which revealed a code needed to register the software title knowing how to protect gives you an insight into how to do the reverse. Hardware reverse engineering is not as difficult as it may seem either; JTag and boundary Scanning techniques gets you through most doors.

 

[Minty]

Ummmm LensLock... I still have Elite for the ZX Spectrum somewhere with an intact LensLock.
I'm hoping it's worth a zillion pounds, but suspect I will be disappointed.

Elite (video game) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Jason Lee Hayes]

Ummmm LensLock... I still have Elite for the ZX Spectrum somewhere with an intact LensLock.
I'm hoping it's worth a zillion pounds, but suspect I will be disappointed.

Elite (video game) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That brings back fond memories; its my understanding that Elite was the first commercial game LensLok was used on. Unfortunately the project was doomed as when you go cross platform many of the monitors some of them fixed were too small or to big and lacked definition for the LensLok implementation to work reliably lol. Personally I never liked the game but loved the concept however Elite was a massive hit and had a huge following. I would definitely keep hold of it; people pay big for such things. I was never a spectrum man myself; Commodore 64 was my game. I could read 6502 machine code like it was my first language and it was the stepping stone of my career looking back... Good old days...

 

[Gasman]

Commodore 64 man here as well.
Jeff Minter, Attack of the Mutant Camels was a good game.

Well before Star Wars, but those huge four legged machines in one filem reminded of that game.

Google Search

 

[Jason Lee Hayes]

Yes I remember - Lamasoft.... I used to work as a software evaluation officer for a company called Alternative Software owner by Roger Hully who's offices were in Pontefract West Yorkshire. Many games were sent to me and I determined if they could be developed for commercial sale. Many of the games were sold for £1.99 under the alternative software brand and were pretty poor to be fair but the younger kids loved them. We opened up a shop in Pontefract Town centre and used that as a base to sell them but did distribute around the UK. I remember using a Datel Electronics Action Replay Cartridge to freeze frame the game so that I could take a screen shot of the game to be used on the outer packaging cover. The camera I used was the bees knees at the time but I cannot remember what is was. I do remember the cellar in the shop was damp and cold and full of spiders and webs though. Also recall receiving a massive bonus at work because I was able to reduce a game on cassette which took 45 minutes to load down to about 7 this saving time and money on duplication costs. If only they new that I simply used the Datel cartridge to freeze the game on start, dump the memory, rewrite the header so no Datel trace and use a turbo loader lol... I miss my 8bit ...