Protect Your PDF from Copying and Downloading
When you publish a PDF online, it can be copied, indexed, or reused without permission. Even with private links, content can still be extracted or redistributed.
With FlowPaper, you can add different levels of protection to your publication to make copying, printing, and text extraction much more difficult.
Basic protection: disable copy and print
1) Import your PDF using the Zine template
2) Go to Settings in the left menu
3) Enable Disable text copy and print
4) Click Apply Settings
This is the simplest level of protection and works well for preventing casual copying and printing.
Advanced protection for sensitive content
If you need stronger protection, you can use FlowPaper’s publication protection, available in the Elements template. This adds an additional layer that makes text extraction significantly harder.
1) Re-import your PDF using the Elements template
2) Go to Settings in the left menu
3) Enable Publication Protection
4) Click Apply Settings and publish your publication
With this enabled, your content will still look normal on screen, but copied text will appear incorrect or unreadable. This makes it much harder for users or automated tools to extract your content.
How text obfuscation works
In unprotected mode, text appears as readable HTML in the rendered publication.
With protection enabled, FlowPaper remaps glyphs and text output so visible content stays correct for readers while the underlying extracted text becomes randomized per document/font combination.
You can also test a protected publication demo.
Related tutorials
Password Protect Your Publication to Control Access