Paperport 11 SE and Locked PDF's

You have posted in The Lounge.
This is a generally non-technical topic area and we are all just a little unsane.

You are welcome to stay and have fun but you really should post this in one of the technical areas.
I'll look and see what applies and post back.

Thanks Madman, I updated the topic choices sometime while you responded. I would love any information you find though.

Hi koiosins,
First, the PDFs being locked has nothing to do with the fact that you have the free Adobe Reader X rather than the paid Adobe Acrobat.

You say that you use PaperPort to print PDF documents, so that means you're printing to either the PaperPort Image Printer or ScanSoft PDF Create, both of which are in PP11. You didn't say which version of Windows you have, but PP11 is long in the tooth and not certified for W7. That said, most of PP11 will work in W7, but the print drivers are iffy. If all you want to do is create PDF files via a print driver, I suggest that you stop using the PaperPort Image Printer or ScanSoft PDF Create, and use instead one of the many free PDF print drivers out there. Seven good ones are Bullzip, CutePDF Writer, doPDF, Foxit Reader PDF Printer (part of the Foxit Reader install), Nitro PDF Creator (part of the Nitro Reader install), PDFCreator, and PrimoPDF:

http://www.bullzip.com/products/pdf/info.php
http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp
http://www.dopdf.com
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/Secure_PDF_Reader
http://www.nitroreader.com
http://www.pdfforge.org/pdfcreator
http://www.primopdf.com

They have varying features and some folks prefer one over the other, so you may want to experiment to see which one you like the best. At one time CutePDF was my favorite, then it was doPDF, and my current choice is Bullzip. So I suggest trying Bullzip first to see if it works well for you; if not, try doPDF next; then the others until you find one that you like. All of them install a "printer" so that you can "print" to it from any Windows program. When you "print" to it, the print driver will create a PDF file. Of course, a nice advantage of the PP Image Printer is that it automatically names the PDF file and places it in the currently open folder on the PP11 desktop, but that's a small feature to give up, imo, in order to get a PDF print driver that works well.

Back to PP11, your SE version (Starter Edition) is the one that is bundled with Brother MFCs and is not as functional as the retail product. I wrote an article here at EE, "PaperPort Upgrade: How to download and install updated versions of PaperPort 11 and 12", but I don't know if it will let you upgrade an SE version — worth a shot, though.

Another idea is to go for the latest PaperPort version — 14. The standard edition of PP14 is just $33 at Amazon now, while the Pro edition is $58:
http://www.amazon.com/Nuance-Communications-Inc-6809A-G00-140-Paperport/dp/B005CELKLM/
http://www.amazon.com/Nuance-Communications-Inc-F309A-G00-140-Professional/dp/B005CELL1G/

A comparison of the standard and Pro features is available in the file <Comparison Matrix of PP11 Standard and PP11 Professional.pdf> in the files section of this PaperPort wiki:
https://sites.google.com/site/wikipaperport/files

Regards, Joe

Office/ Productivity looks promising
Experts Exchange > Software > Office / Productivity
...but it looks like you might have found better...

Good luck

Hi Joe,

I was hoping my thread would reach you, I came across a few of your threads in which you discussed being an expert on PP. I will check out your suggestions for pdf printing options as an alternative to PP because we are using windows 7 and were not aware of the compatibility issues between windows 7 and pp11.

We often have to make annotations to various types of pdf's and like this function offered by PP. If we incorporate the other printing options to replace the PP Image Printer will the other pdf options you suggested allow for annotations or will we have to invest in PP14?

Well, it just doesn't seem right to call myself an expert — others should do that. :)  But I will say that I've been using PP for around 20 years — since version 3 that was bundled with an HP scanner in the mid-90s. I've upgraded to every version since then, currently on the latest-and-greatest 14.5, am heavily involved with the PaperPort group on both Google Groups and Yahoo Groups, and have written a fair amount about PP, including several articles here at EE (the most recent is "PaperPort - How To Reorder/Rearrange Scanning Profiles").

PP11 was certified on Vista. PP12 is the first version certified on W7. Nuance got superstitious and skipped having a PP13, which brings us to the latest PP14.

There are several free, top quality PDF readers/viewers that provide annotations. In fact, the latest Adobe Reader — XI (11) — has annotations. It is the first version of Adobe Reader to have them. Here are three other excellent, free PDF readers/viewers that support annotations:

(1) Foxit Reader:
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/

(2) PDF-XChange Editor:
http://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-editor

(3) Nitro Reader:
http://www.nitroreader.com/

So if you use one of the free PDF print drivers, you'll be able to annotate the PDFs created with one of the free PDF readers/viewers. In fact, if you go with Foxit Reader, you'll get its Foxit Reader PDF Printer; and if you go with Nitro Reader, you'll get its Nitro PDF Creator.

With this approach, there's no need for PP14 — if all you're going to use PP14 for is printing to PDFs and annotating them. Regards, Joe

Hi Joe,

You have been incredibly informative. I'm struggling with one more item which might be my own misunderstanding which prompted my initial question. I installed Foxit Reader and really like the features however I left the reading option as Adobe because I have to use a CRM specific to my industry that open's documents in Adobe so I can edit the forms I'm working with. I'm not sure if this setting will allow me to assembly PDF docs which is why I'm exploring options besides Paperport.

I tried printing a set of documents using Foxit and verified the securities noticing form assembly is not allowed. Once I print a set of documents into PDF I need to email the docs to people outside of my organization who need to be able to assemble or manipulate the forms.

Is form assembly simply a settings option I can change in Adobe or do I need to explore other software options which allow PDF printing, annotations, and form assembly?

I just printed a Word document with the Foxit Reader PDF Printer, installed as part of the Foxit Reader 6 installation:


I used the default settings in the driver and it created a PDF file with all Document Restrictions set to Allowed (including Document Assembly):


I don't know why you would be getting Document Assembly not allowed. Maybe you're using an old version. Head on over to the Foxit website (link above) and give the latest version 6 a spin. Regards, Joe

Glad you understood perfectly what I was trying to say. Played around with Foxit Reader a bit more and discovered all document security settings are allowed even when leaving Adobe Reader as default PDF viewer.


I emailed a test set of docs to someone with Adobe Acrobat and they were able to open and extract docs.

Thanks again for your time and energy. I Just wanted to be sure I was not doing something wrong which was preventing full doc security access.

Joe was incredibly thorough making sure my issue was resolved by testing some of the problems I was having allowing us to come up with a work around.

That's great news! I'm very glad that it worked out well for you. And thanks for the kind words — I really appreciate hearing them! Regards, Joe

I don't know anything about computers, but whoever wrote this program, doesn't know anything about real life. It says "off" on all security settings and it still won't  let me insert pages. They way I got around it was to print the file, choosing "Adobe" as the printer and then create a new file which was not protected.
There is nothing about this problem  in the incorrectly named "Help" files, This is a caveman solution to the problem, but it worked