If you need help with any of the techniques described below, feel free to contact our support team.

Can CoolSpools password-protect a PDF?

Yes, there are options for this on the PASSWORD parameter of the CVTSPLPDF command.

PDF supports two levels of password protection and CoolSpools allows you to define either or both of these for the PDFs you create:

  • A user password, which will need to be entered before the file can be opened, but which may restrict the things that can be done
  • An owner password, giving complete control over the file and allowing all operations to be performed

Passwords are case-sensitive and can be up to 32 characters in length. Be careful to remember the passwords you use as we are unable to assist in recovering them if they are lost or forgotten.

PDF files which have passwords defined are always encrypted. Two levels of encryption are available:

  • 40-bit encryption. This was the original PDF standard and is used if PASSWORD(*YES) or PASSWORD(*PWD40BIT) is specified
  • 128-bit encryption. A stronger level of encryption supported by later versions of PDF. CoolSpools uses 128-bit encryption if PASSWORD(*PWD128BIT) is specified

It is also possible to restrict what actions can be performed on a PDF. You can restrict what can be done to a PDF with or without requiring a password to be entered to open it. See this FAQ answer for further details of how to do that.

Passwords can also be set using an exit program. You will need to use an exit program if you need to assign different passwords to the various output files you create when you split a single spooled files into multiple PDFs, for example if you wanted to split a batch of invoices into separate invoice documents and give each a different password. See this FAQ answer for further details of how to write an exit program.

FAQ Guide support