> -----Original Message----- > From: Anil Pinto [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >
Hi Anil, > I looked at iText but was not sure it could do it as I saw this statement > somewhere on it's FAQ'a page at http://www.lowagie.com/iText/faq.html > > "Because decrypting an encrypted PDF-file is not possible with > iText (and it will never be) ........" > Well, I'm not sure either. It seems to be related to the following (a bit higher up in the same FAQ): "Software that accepts input in the form of the Portable Document Format must respect the access permissions specified in that document. Accessing the document in ways not permitted by the document's access permissions is a violation of the document author's copyright." If you take a look at the command-line tool PDFTK(*) for example, this does allow for decrypting IF the password is supplied... So it *should* be possible to achieve it without the Acrobat SDK. Unfortunately for you, AFAIK, FOP's PDF library is write-only, but if you use iText as a basis --which is read/write--, and study the relevant parts of the PDF Specification, it should be feasible --maybe not in the short-term, but still feasible for someone who is determined enough. OT -- Personal view: If iText wants to play it safe, by simply not allowing to open ANY encrypted PDF file, well... :-/ I would consider that to be a convenient way to avoid certain legal issues. Anyway, you just know that sometime someone is going to go all the way. When that happens, can iText honestly claim that it had *no part* in it whatsoever? No, because, after all they provided the basis... Even Adobe itself, in spite of the carefully chosen description of the 'conditions of copyright permission', still has made the PDF Specification publically available. The only thing they are not responsible for, is the fact that some people may choose to ignore those comments... but what they do know, as well as you and I, is that such people exist. (BTW: it bears a striking resemblance to developing technology for nuclear weapons, and then subsequently forging agreements with everyone to never use them. All looks nice on paper, but when push comes to shove, nothing's easier to dismiss than a bunch of pompous sentences with a few signatures, none of which are your own.) Greetz, Andreas (*) http://www.accesspdf.com/pdftk/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
