After setting an owner password for a PDF, you can change password-protection options or create a new password. Changes take effect the next time the PDF is opened. Show
Since its creation in the 1990s, the PDF has become a wildly popular electronic file format for everyone from professionals to students to retirees to children. Sending a PDF email attachment has become a second-nature standard—but have you ever stopped to consider how to send a PDF securely? If you have, you’re in luck! In this guide, I’ll be reviewing how to password protect a PDF and track it once you’ve sent it. Option 1: Password protect a PDF fileMost professionals who send sensitive documents, such as CEOs and CFOs, assume that adding a password to a PDF sufficiently secures it—and in some cases, password protection does do the trick. How to add a password using Adobe Acrobat DC
How to add a password using Preview on a Mac
What adding a password to a PDF accomplishes is limiting access to that PDF to those who know the password. What adding a password to a PDF doesn’t accomplish is viewer tracking. As the sender of that file, you have no idea which recipients are opening and engaging with that PDF. While we’re at it, you also can’t be certain who is forwarding the PDF and the password along to others. Suffice it to say, if you want to send a PDF securely by email, adding a password probably isn’t the best way. You’ve effectively lost control of a document that you clearly wanted to control (hence the password in the first place!)—in this scenario, there’s no telling where that PDF and password could be forwarded. The vulnerability associated with this approach may seem like a necessary evil for sharing important, high-stakes documents—but thankfully, it’s not. Option 2: Share a PDF through DocSendDocSend enables business leaders to send documents securely and track in-depth viewer engagement. While sending a password protected PDF via Gmail or Outlook is what we’ve all come to know, you can send truly secure PDFs through DocSend’s Gmail plugin or Outlook plugin and track what happens to them—let’s walk through how. If you’d like to follow along, you can get started with DocSend for free. Step 1: Upload your PDF to DocSend[uploading] Uploading files to DocSend is easy—DocSend currently integrates with Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, Microsoft OneDrive, and more, so you can drag and drop files from anywhere. Once you upload your PDF, you can attach it to as many emails as you’d like (with the Gmail and Outlook plugins). You can even upload your PDF directly through your chosen DocSend plugin, if you’d like.
Step 2: Create a passcode-protected link to share your PDFWhen you create a sharing link for the PDF you’ve just uploaded, you’ll be able to specify whether you want to require an email to view and allow downloading. If you click “Show advanced options”, you’ll also be able to add an expiration date for the link and passcode protect the PDF. You can then copy and share your link in an email! (Note: If you intend to track the engagement and forwarding of this link, you’ll want to create one link per account, lead, or individual with whom you’re sharing your PDF. More on that later!) For an even more secure sending experience, Advanced users can require viewer verification. In this scenario, the viewer will be presented with a prompt to enter his or her email address, and will have to click on a link sent to that email in order to access the PDF. You can also upload and attach your PDF to an email with DocSend’s Gmail and Outlook pluginsIf you’d rather upload and share your PDF as an email attachment without leaving Gmail or Outlook, you can do so using DocSend plugins for Gmail and Outlook. Here’s the link to attaching an uploaded PDF using the Gmail plugin, and here’s the link to attaching an uploaded PDF using the Outlook plugin. Step 3: Disable and re-enable link-based access as neededWith just a few clicks, you can moderate access to your PDF by disabling and/or re-enabling the DocSend links you’ve created. For a detailed walk-through of this process, check out our help center article on updating link settings. How to sign a PDF in Gmail? Easy, add an eSignature with DocSendOnce you have uploaded your PDF word document, file from Google Docs, Dropbox, the PDF documents you saved in Acrobat, or another workflow integrations in DocSend, you can add on
eSignature right in DocSend before sending it out to streamline your process. How to track your documentSo, you’ve uploaded your PDF to DocSend, created a link with all the necessary security bells and whistles, and now you’ve sent it off—what next? If you care enough about the contents of your PDF to secure it, you probably also care about how it’s received and read. If this is the case, I’ve got good news: by creating and sending out individual DocSend links for each recipient or group of recipients, you’re already on the road to tracking your secure PDF document. Let’s take a quick look at all the ways you can monitor engagement. First, you’ll receive instant read notifications when your document is viewed. A summary of these notifications will also be available in the “Performance” tab when you click on a particular file or document in DocSend. Furthermore, you’ll be able to see where viewers spent their time, on a page-by-page or slide-by-slide basis. Depending on the contents and purpose of the PDF, this can be incredibly enlightening. As is the case with read notifications, a summary of engagement is also available when you click on a particular file or document in DocSend. There are a number of additional metrics and measures of engagement that you can track in DocSend. I encourage you to start your free trial of DocSend, send out that PDF, and explore the insightful performance indicators to your heart’s content! Got a question about DocSend or how to best set up your account? Feel free to check out the DocSend Help Center or give our support team a buzz. |