Protecting the generated PDF in Ruby with Net::HTTP

In this guide, we'll show you how you can protect your generated PDF with encryption for owner and user, and for choosing who can modify, print and/or copy the generated PDF. This guides explains you to do it using Ruby and the Net::HTTP library and relies on the PDFShift's API.

One of the most useful feature here is the ability to set a password for the owner and the user of the PDF. This allows you to protect your document from anyone and restrict its access to only a few people.

PDFShift allows you to do this easily by adding the protection object to your query.

Here's a sample:

require 'net/http'
require 'uri'
require 'json'

# You can get an API key at https://pdfshift.io
api_key = 'sk_xxxxxxxxxxxx'

params = {
    'source' => 'https://www.example.com',
    'protection' => {
        'owner_password' => 'owner_password',
        'user_password' => 'user_password',
        'no_print' => True,
        'no_modify' => True
    }
}

url = URI("https://api.pdfshift.io/v3/convert/pdf")
http = Net::HTTP.new(url.host, url.port)
http.use_ssl = true

request = Net::HTTP::Post.new(url)
request['Content-Type'] = 'application/json'
request.basic_auth('api', api_key)
request.body = params.to_json

# Send the request and handle the response
response = http.request(request)

# write response to a file nammed "result.pdf"
File.open('result.pdf', 'wb') { |f| f.write(response.body) }

# Print a success message
puts 'The PDF document was generated and saved to result.pdf'

Adding the protection object to your query will tell PDFShift to generate a PDF that will be password protected.

The protection object accepts the following parameters:

• author : The name of the author in the PDF metadata.
• owner_password: The password set for the owner.
• user_password: The password set for the user.
• no_print: If set to True, the user won't be able to print the PDF. (Only the owner)
• no_modify: If set to True, the user won't be able to modify the PDF. (Only the owner)
• no_copy: If set to True, the user won't be able to copy the content of the PDF. (Only the owner)

IMPORTANT: It is important to note that most PDF reader don't respect the protection parameter. For instance, if you set the user_password to none (allowing anyone to view the PDF) but set the owner_password and block the modify, print and copy, most PDF reader will still allow user (and not owners) to modify, print and copy the PDF. This is a limitation of the PDF format and not PDFShift.