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Don Don is offline
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Posts: 103
Default disable content copying in a pdf

"Graham Mayor" wrote in
:

It doesn't depend on anything of the kind. If you can see it you can
copy it. These methods only slow the user down. Worst case scenario -
screen capture the pdf one page at a time (Snag It will do that
easily) and run it through OCR. The encryption won't help there!


Your method is less than effective.
I tested it on a seven page PDF that is 100% pure text, no numerals (which
presents real issues, especially fractions).
Seven full pages of screen captures amounts to approx., 14 half page screen
captures.

I saved the resulting JPG's @ 100% non-compression (which most folks of
the masses are not even aware of).

The resulting OCR was approximately 60% accurate. (and all of this
utilizing the same spell checker that was used to created the initial RTF
from which the PDF was created. (My spell checker dictionary has been
supplemented extensively over a ten year period on "my widgets"). Anothers
dictionary not similarly focused would provide even lesser results.

99.99% of the population are simply not going to jump through this many
hoops for such ineffective results.
Hell! 90% of population have moved their scanner to a back corner of
their desktop after attemping a solitary image and/or OCR.

One example of ineffective OCR is the TIF images and their conversion to
text that are made available by the Library of Congress-American Memory
archives.