Can you believe it’s Wednesday again? Where is Summer going?! It’s time for another Work Your Blog Wednesday and this one is all about securing PDFs and making them editable too. I prefer to upload products in PDFs instead of PowerPoint for a couple reasons. First, when you leave products editable in PowerPoint, it is very easy to add/delete/resave slides. Your hard work is just a few clicks away from being stolen by copying/pasting individual slides into a new product. Think putting your copyright on the side will save you? Nope! They just add a new shape and text box right on top of it. How do I know this? It happened to me. Stealing is wrong, people! Second, PDFs maintain font properties in their text boxes, even if the other user doesn’t have the font on their computer. This doesn’t work for 100% of fonts due to terms of use, but it does work for most of them.
Now on to the goods. You will need Adobe Acrobat Pro to make these PDFs, but users can open them and edit them using the free Adobe Reader software. In this video, I first show you how to add text boxes that your users will be able to customize. Then, I show you how to lock/secure the PDF so that it can’t be altered.
Disclaimer 1: Adobe acknowledges that there are some third party software programs that will get around a secured document. However, it is still a better option over PowerPoint in my opinion.
Disclaimer 2: I had taken a pretty hard fall the morning of shooting this video due to a little DIY around the house and I was on drugs for the pain. Sorry if I’m a little fuzzier than usual. I didn’t have the heart to redo it. =)
I’ll be back next Wednesday for another Work Your Blog tip. Until then, you can visit my You Tube channel for several more blogger tutorials. I also have a Pinterest board with tips and tutorials.
Great video!! I have been wondering how to do this. Thanks so much!
April
Wolfelicious
Thank you so much Christi.
I have been really interested in starting to make products, but was unsure of how to do it via PDF. Can't wait to check your Youtube channel out and get some more tips.
Becky
Hi, Christi–Thanks for your post! I was wondering if you knew the best way to secure PDFs that you link to via your Google drive in a blog (for example, if I wanted to link to a freebie in a blog post to my Google drive instead to my TpT store so that blog readers wouldn't have to log in to TpT to download it). I do all my products in PP then convert to PDF. Recently, I password-secured a PDF through Nitro (a compatible PDF software to Acrobat) so that no one could copy content and uploaded it to my Google drive. When I checked my link from my blog to the document on the Google drive, I could copy and paste the PDF no problem. 🙁 I ended up just saving all pages of the PP document as images, reinserted them to PP, and saved the doc as a PDF. No content could be copied once it was in the Google drive. Just wondering if you had ever had this problem with Acrobat-secured PDFs or if you had suggestions less tedious than the "save as images" first in PP method.
Thanks!
Kristen
Aspire to Inspire
The PDFs that you make are the same, whether you upload them to TpT or Google drive. So you can follow the directions above and then upload it to your Google drive. I don't know about Nitro, but it doesn't sound like it actually locked your PDF down.
I figured that might be the case. I'll keep playing with them. Thanks for your help!
Christi- Thank you so much for your video series- the videos have helped a ton! Just finishing my Facebook freebie.
Julie
Make, Take & Teach
You're welcome!
Hey Christi,
Thank you so much for this video! I've been wondering how to create the editable boxes but yet still have a secure document so this is going to help me greatly. Also, I love the tip about creating a one click button for securing…I will be using that too!
Sorry to hear of your fall…hope you heal fast!
Thanks!
ღ Diane
schoolhousetreasures
I've been interested in making products but didn't know how to lock them down. This tutorial will be really helpful. Thanks for another great tutorial! Teaching with Giggles
Your video was very informative. Thank you so much! I think, I'll be coming back to it numerous times till I get it down pact. You have been a great help. I've always wondered it things were done behind the scenes and you have truly enlightened me. Thank you so much!
Najda
@gardenfullofknowledge
najda_2000@yahoo.com
Great video! However, I don't have Adobe Acrobat Pro and it's quite expensive. Are there alternative programs that can be used instead?
Thanks!
Pam
Diary of a Second Grade Teacher
Thank you so much for the helpful video! I've been trying to figure out how to do this for a while now. Such a help!!!
~Miss Jackson 🙂
Your blog is undoubtedly an awesome resource to download many useful application software for free. I am bookmarking it and even share it with my friends too.
Adobe Support
Thank you so much for this straight forward & easy-to-follow tutorial! So much easier than trying to sift through tutorials on Adobe’s website. 🙂