Disable printing when exporting to PDF from Indesign

Question

Hi  I need to create a T&C form which will be emailed out to clients, the sales team have requested that this should be readable but not printable as a PDF in a small step in saving the environment. I actually achieved this last week and now for the life of me cannot work out how to do it again. Would anyone be able to help?  Many thanks, Claire
NB: unchecking the 'Print Layer' in the Layer Options box does not work, sadly neither does ticking the 'Nonprinting' option in the Attributes window. I have a feeling it was something in the export dialog box but definitely not a security ermissions option as the PDF I created last week doesn't require a password and yet won't print.

Answer 1

If you're hoping to prevent a PDF document from printing with sneak-around backdoors, you'll be disappointed.
Anyone who breaks an expensive scanner platen glass by placing or dropping a CRT monitor on it, when following Eugene's illustrated example, might be permanently dissuaded. Making a screen shot with the computer's own tools, or a camera's phone is easier and safer.
If your hope is simply to always prompt the user to reconsider killing trees needlessly, it may be possible to intercept a print request made from the Acrobat display software in use at the time (Acrobat, Reader, Web browser window, Mac Preview, etc.) and display an alert to think about printing before proceeding. If this kind of print request can't be intercepted, you could consider creating a button in the document labeled "Print," but which displays an alert and gives the option to proceed or cancel. Perhaps there a script solution for what you need.
If your hope is to make it as difficult as possible for someone to print a PDF, consider converting text to outlines and/or incorporating a patterned background behind text, to disable easy Optical Character Recognition, and to "contaminate" graphics. However, a clever Photoshop user might be able to minimize the graphic pattern.
NOTE: Enabling Acrobat's security to disable screen readers does not disable the ability to select and highlight on-screen text, but it does prevent copying the text to the clipboard.
HTH
Regards,
Peter
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices
clairecessford wrote:
Hi  I need to create a T&C form which will be emailed out to clients, the sales team have requested that this should be readable but not printable as a PDF in a small step in saving the environment. I actually achieved this last week and now for the life of me cannot work out how to do it again. Would anyone be able to help?  Many thanks, Claire
NB: unchecking the 'Print Layer' in the Layer Options box does not work, sadly neither does ticking the 'Nonprinting' option in the Attributes window. I have a feeling it was something in the export dialog box but definitely not a security ermissions option as the PDF I created last week doesn't require a password and yet won't print.