> On 2023-07-03, Bram Moolenaar <b...@moolenaar.net> wrote:
> > I suppose encrypting the file won't be possible, since the reader does
> > not know how to decrypt it.  Or does the Preview app support encryption
> > somehow?
> 
> Yes, macOS's Preview supports (at least some?) encrypted PDFs. I did
> a quick test by encrypting a random PDF document with qpdf:
> 
>     qpdf --encrypt PASSWORD OWNERPASSWORD 256 -- in.pdf out.pdf
> 
> and by opening out.pdf with Preview, which prompted for a password
> before opening the document.

I could find help with:
        % qpdf --help=encryption
Create encrypted files. Usage:

        --encrypt user-password owner-password key-length [options] --

        Either or both of user-password and owner-password may be empty
        strings. key-length may be 40, 128, or 256. Encryption options are
        terminated by "--" by itself.

I don't like passing the password on the command line, but I suppose
there is no other way.

There is no explanation of "user-password" and "owner-password", other
than that they may be empty.  Is there a recommended usage?

> > The alternative is to not use a temp file but write the text through a
> > pipe/socket.  That also avoids the need to find the right moment to
> > delete the temp file.  Can we do this somehow?
> 
> With Preview? I don't think so. But if one wants to get fancy, the PDF
> can be written to the system clipboard and then Preview can be asked to
> create a new document from the clipboard's content (using AppleScript).
> Then, the clipboard content can be erased.

The big question is: is this safe?  Is it impossible for someone else to
get the text in not encrypted form?

> Or, even better, one could create a (sufficiently large) RAM disk with
> something like:
> 
>     hdiutil attach -nomount ram://204800
>     diskutil erasevolume APFS TempDisk /dev/diskN
> 
> use it as volatile storage, then destroy it:
> 
>     diskutil eject /Volumes/TempDisk
> 
> The RAM disk can likely be formatted with an encrypted file system, too.

OK, so there are options.  Which one should we use?  I can guess that
"ram://" specifies using a RAM disk.  What is the "204800" for?

-- 
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If it's sent by road then it's a shipment.
                                Dave Allen

 /// Bram Moolenaar -- b...@moolenaar.net -- http://www.Moolenaar.net   \\\
///                                                                      \\\
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