David Image

Protecting content

How we can realistically protect content whilst ensuring usability?

  1. PDF permissions or text watermarks prove too easy to get around.
  2. Restrict distribution through deploying HTML content. No PDF means nothing to distribute except password access.
  3. If your require a PDF, apply watermarks via image overlays. QPDF provides a good CLI function for this that you can integrate into a pipeline.

For example

script:
  - ./bin/qpdf
    --overlay ./_build/develop/_static/watermark_draft.pdf
    --repeat=1-z 
    -- 
    --replace-input ./_build/develop/$DOC-DRAFT.pdf

See also

QPDF