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Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 21:10:00 -0500
From: rhh@ct.picker.com (Randall Hopper)
To: imdave@synet.net (Dave Bodenstab)
Cc: shawn@luke.cpl.net, questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: pdf?
References: <199701301810.MAA07180@base486.synet.net>
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Dave Bodenstab:
 |Shawn Ramsey <shawn@luke.cpl.net> wrote:
 |> Is there a viewer that supports excrypted PDF's for FreeBSD? GV or xpdf
 |> don't seem to work. :(
 |
 |If you look at ghostscript's file "pdf_sec.ps" you'll find the comments:

     Adobe Acrobat 3.0 for Linux (on Adobe's web site) works (on 2.2-ALPHA
at least) for viewing encrypted PDFs.  However, GhostScript doesn't want to
handle the PostScript it spits out.  I don't know if its truly invalid
PostScript or just that GhostScript doesn't grok it.  GhostScript's
understanding it is a big deal to me as I print PostScript on my LJ4P (w/o
PostScript SIMM) via GhostScript.

     With the decryption specs now publicly available, hopefully someone
will write a encrypted-to-unencrypted PDF conversion utility.  I'd
certainly be interested in that.

     Also, in case you're interested here's more on the xpdf deal.
Recently swapped mail with the author and with Adobe for for more on the
decryption issue, he pointed me to his Decryption link off of the XPDF home
page:

     http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/usr/dn0o/xpdf/xpdf.html

     Allegedly Adobe made the decryption specs public a couple months ago,
but since PDF uses RSA RC4, he's hesitant to add any support due to export
restrictions.  From what Dave Bodenstab pointed out, it seems Ghostscript's
in the same boat but facing the other direction.

Response from Adobe attached below FYI.

Randall Hopper



Developer Relations <devsup-person@Adobe.COM>:
 |Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 07:47:06 -0800
 |
 |>Are PDF encryption specs available for developers?  
 |
 |They always have been, contrary to what you may have read in an error
 |message encountered while using Derek Noonburg's non-compliant XPDF Reader
 |software (I'm guessing here).
 |
 |>If so, can you point me to where?
 |
 |http://www.adobe.com/supportservice/devrelations/PDFS/TN/PDFSPEC.PDF
 |
 |XPDF is flawed, and does not support the public PDF specification. If you
 |want a Reader that works, try ours;
 |
 |http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/lindnld.html
 |
 |Hope this helps!
 |
 |
 |Bruce Bullis
 |Adobe Developer Relations
 |http://www.adobe.com/supportservice/devrelations/main.html