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>12.3.9</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.

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

//Load a sample PDF file
pdf.loadFromFile("C:\\Users\\Administrator\\Desktop\\sample.pdf");
String output = "output/changeSecurityPermission_output.pdf";

// Create a PdfSecurityPolicy with the specified user password and owner password
PdfSecurityPolicy securityPolicy = new PdfPasswordSecurityPolicy("userpassword", "ownerpassword");

// Create a PdfDocumentPrivilege with desired permissions (e.g., allow filling form fields)
PdfDocumentPrivilege privilege = new PdfDocumentPrivilege();
privilege.setAllowFillFormFields(true);
privilege.setAllowPrint(true);

// Encrypt the PDF document using the specified security policy
pdf.encrypt(securityPolicy);

// Save the encrypted PDF document to the output file path
pdf.saveToFile(output, FileFormat.PDF);

// Close the PDF document to release resources
pdf.close();

// Dispose of the PDF document to free up system resources
pdf.dispose();

Apply for a Temporary License

If you'd like to remove the evaluation message from the generated documents, or to get rid of the function limitations, please request a 30-day trial license for yourself.