Restricting editing functionality does not work as expected

[KubilayC38]

Hello,

This is basically a continuation of this post (but not a duplicate): viewtopic.php?t=41131
But the suggested solutions did not work for me.

We have corporate licenses for the PDF-XChange Editor but do not want everyone to be able to edit the files they will be viewing. The Viewer would have been perfect regarding the requirements if it would not be discontinued. I saw that the Editor can be limited in its functionality. But it seems to not work as stated in the documentation.

Given this link (https://help.pdf-xchange.com/sysadmin/i ... tions.html), it would be possible to restrict the functionality of the program. But there it says for example "open:0|save:0 - to disable the 'Open' and 'Save' commands in toolbars/menus.".

When I tried that with "edit:0" to limit all edit commands, it did not work since it seems to need the exact commands like "cmd.tool.editContent.all". This would mean that I would have to go through every of the thousand commands and check if it can edit the file in a way the common user is not supposed to do which would be a lot of manual work.
This did not meet my expectations when I saw the example of "open:0" to "disable the 'Open' and 'Save' commands in toolbars/menus".

Is there any simple way I did not see? Something just like adding "edit:0" to the availability and visibility line regarding the commands which would cover every editing functionality at once? Or am I completely on a wrong path for having an up-to-date program to view but not edit PDF files?

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi, KubilayC38

I see your point about the complexity in applying the policies.

I asked the development teal leader his thoughts on this and he says we may consider implementing a mechanism that allows three different modes of operation of the Editor.

We could potentially set the Editor to function as :

• Read only - no modifications allowed at all.
• Commenting Only - PDF "Base Content" would be "Read Only" but comments could be modified.
• Full Read/Write - no restrictions as things are now.

The suggestion has been floated that these three states could be defines by their storage paths. You could define on your end a location to put documents that should have full edit capabilities, another location for documents that can be commented on, and the rest (or a third specific location) for Read Only.

That would require you to organize your document storage with that in mind.

Another approach would be Group Policies again, but just the one set to the editing level desired. This approach would mean the policy is enforced and an administrator would need to be involved to change the policy that sets the user capabilities.

I am keen to hear your thoughts on if that might be a suitable solution and how you, and others, would want to see it implemented.

Enforced Policy or storage location? Something else?

This is not at this point a promise to deliver, but it does represent a serious commitment into looking into it.

If you need a solution right now, I can set up an example policy that covers the editing tools for you to test.