Encrypting and Decrypting PDF Documents

About the Encryption Service

The Encryption service lets you encrypt and decrypt documents. When a document is encrypted, its contents become unreadable. An authorized user can decrypt the document to obtain access to the contents. If a PDF document is encrypted with a password, the user must specify the open password before the document can be viewed in Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat. Likewise, if a PDF document is encrypted with a certificate, the user must decrypt the PDF document with the public key that corresponds to the certificate (private key) that was used to encrypt the PDF document.

You can accomplish these tasks using the Encryption service:

• Encrypt a PDF document with a password. (See Encrypting PDF Documents with a Password.)

• Encrypt a PDF document with a certificate. (See Encrypting PDF Documents with Certificates.)

• Remove password-based encryption from a PDF document. (See Removing Password Encryption.)

• Remove certificate-based encryption from a PDF document. (See Removing Certificate Based Encryption.)

• Unlock the PDF document so that other service operations can be performed. For example, after a password-encrypted PDF document is unlocked, you can apply a digital signature to it. (See Unlocking Encrypted PDF Documents.)

• Determine the encryption type of a secured PDF document. (See Determining Encryption Type.)

  Note: For more information about the Encryption service, see Services Reference for LiveCycle.