You can require a password to open a document, set a separate password for changing its permissions, and choose what readers are allowed to do. You can also remove protection.
Steps
- In the rail, choose Protect, then Permissions… in the Encryption group (Password and permissions).
- In Encryption, choose AES-256 (recommended). Older choices are there for very old readers.
- Type a Password to open (optional) and/or a Password to change permissions (optional). You need at least one.
- Under Allow without the permissions password, untick anything readers should not do, such as Print or Copy text and images.
- Choose Protect document, then save the document. Protection is applied when you save.
To remove protection: open the window, choose None — remove the password in Encryption, choose Remove protection, then save.
Good to know
- Keep your passwords safe. Monstera holds them only while the document is open, so your changes are saved still protected, and forgets them when you close it. It cannot recover a password.
- Permissions are honoured by PDF readers that choose to honour them; they are not enforced by the file itself.
- A protection change can be undone and redone like any other change while the document is open.
- Undo restores the passwords and permissions from before the change. You can keep editing, including adding a watermark, then save with that restored protection.
- When you protect a document, Monstera also encrypts the older copies it keeps beside it, such as backups and undo copies, so none is left readable. If one cannot be encrypted, usually because another program has it open, the document is still protected and Monstera tells you which copies could not be encrypted. Close any program using them and protect the document again to finish.
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