Java: Add Security Permissions to a PDF Document

PDF documents can be secured in several ways. When PDFs are protected with a permission password, readers can open the document without needing to enter a password, but they may not have permission to further manipulate the document, such as printing or copying the content. In this article, you will learn how to set security permissions for a PDF document in Java using Spire.PDF for Java library.

Install Spire.PDF for Java

First, you're required to add the Spire.Pdf.jar file as a dependency in your Java program. The JAR file can be downloaded from this link. If you use Maven, you can easily import the JAR file in your application by adding the following code to your project's pom.xml file.

<repositories>
    <repository>
        <id>com.e-iceblue</id>
        <name>e-iceblue</name>
        <url>https://repo.e-iceblue.com/nexus/content/groups/public/</url>
    </repository>
</repositories>
<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>e-iceblue</groupId>
        <artifactId>spire.pdf</artifactId>
        <version>10.4.4</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>
    

Add Security Permissions to a PDF Document in Java

Below are the steps to apply security permissions to a PDF document using Spire.PDF for Java.

• Create a PdfDocument object.
• Load a sample PDF file using PdfDocument.loadFileFile() method.
• Specify open password and permission password. The open password can be set to empty so that the generated document will not require a password to open.
• Encrypt the document with the open password and permission password, and set the security permissions using PdfDocument.getSecurity().encypt() method. This method takes PdfPermissionsFlags enumeration as a parameter, which defines user access permissions for an encrypted document.
• Save the document to another PDF file using PdfDocument.saveToFile() method.

import com.spire.pdf.PdfDocument;
import com.spire.pdf.security.PdfEncryptionKeySize;
import com.spire.pdf.security.PdfPermissionsFlags;

import java.util.EnumSet;

public class ChangeSecurityPermissions {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        //Create a PdfDocument object
        PdfDocument doc = new PdfDocument();

        //Load a sample PDF file
        doc.loadFromFile("C:\\Users\\Administrator\\Desktop\\sample.pdf");

        //Specify open password
        String openPsd = "";

        //Specify permission password
        String permissionPsd = "e-iceblue";

        //Specify permissions
        EnumSet permissionsFlags = EnumSet.of(PdfPermissionsFlags.Print, PdfPermissionsFlags.Full_Quality_Print);

        //Encrypt the document with open password and permission password, and set the permissions and encryption key size
        doc.getSecurity().encrypt(openPsd, permissionPsd, permissionsFlags, PdfEncryptionKeySize.Key_128_Bit);

        //Save the document to another PDF file
        doc.saveToFile("output/SecurityPermissions.pdf");
    }
}

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