To sum up our 6 part series about optimizing your readers’ experience when choosing a PDF DRM solution to protect PDF content, we’ve compiled the following list for you to consider:

1. Balance the reader’s privacy with the publisher’s need to know - Ask only necessary information to validate your reader’s identity
2. Keep the validation process simple for your readers - Make sure that when controlling your content’s distribution the validation process is simple and easy for your readers to remember
3. Consider readers’ desire not to install extra software to access PDFs - Your PDF DRM solution shouldn’t require your readers to download anything extra to access your PDF content
4. Understand your readers’ use patterns - Choose a PDF protection solution that allows your reader some flexibility (if appropriate) when it comes to what computers they can access your PDF content on
5. Understand your commitment to maintaining the reader record - Try to accommodate your readers’ expectations for document shelf-life with your control over PDF content
6. Implement a tolerable document security level - A DRM solution should be a deterrent from unauthorized access yet doesn’t hamper authorized readers’ access

(6) Implement a tolerable document security level

Often DRM is considered by the reader to be a pain and hinders their ability access the content. It is important that the reader feels that the level of security is balanced out by the perceived value of the PDF document’s content.

Takeaway: A DRM solution should be a deterrent from unauthorized access yet doesn’t hamper authorized readers’ access

(5) Understand your commitment to maintaining the reader record

How long should you keep a record of who has access to documents and maintain those protected documents? There needs to be a balance between keeping DRM systems simple and databases clean for you (the publisher), and your readers’ expectation that, once authorized access is granted, they will have access to those documents for a reasonable amount of time. Sometimes documents are time sensitive and can only be accessed for a short period of time, other documents have an eternal shelf-life and readers want to be able to access it forever.

Takeaway: Try to accommodate your readers’ expectations for document shelf-life with your control over PDF content

(4) Understand your readers’ use patterns

Many people download a document on one computer and want to read it on another. For example, one of your readers might download your PDF at work but then may need to transfer it to a laptop to travel. Many PDF DRM solutions do not allow the reader to access the document on different computers, impeding your readers’ ability to access the content. However, as the publisher you know best whether multi-computer access is appropriate for your content.

Takeaway: Choose a PDF protection solution that allows your reader some flexibility (if appropriate)

(3) Consider readers’ desire not to install extra software to access PDFs

Many consumers are reluctant to have proprietary software installed on their computers in order to gain access to protected documents.  Requiring your readers to download special PDF viewers or validation plug-ins will hamper their experience and make it more difficult for them to access your content, resulting in readers abandoning it.

Takeaway: Your PDF DRM solution shouldn’t require your readers to download anything extra to access your PDF content

(2) Keep the validation process simple for your readers

Unprotected content can be easily distributed, and is shared often – 89% of adult internet users share email content with others. However, unprotected PDF content is usually less valuable than information from protected sources (there’s a reason why the content publisher wants it protected). Protected PDF content is only accessible as long as the reader recalls their username and password – otherwise the content will be inaccessible.

Takeaway: Make sure that when controlling your content’s distribution the validation process is simple and easy for your readers to remember

Optimizing the PDF reader’s experience while protecting your PDF content will increase the likelihood of your PDF’s success. If it is too hard to access the content, your readers are just going to give up.

(1) Balance the reader’s privacy with the publisher’s need to know

There’s a fine balance between asking your reader for information (to validate their right to access content) with their right to only provide essential personal information. By asking readers for as much information as possible during a security transaction, you will make them feel as though your DRM system is too time-consuming and invasive.

Takeaway: Ask only necessary information to validate your reader’s identity

For those of us who build software, creating a new software product is usually fun and exciting. There are new challenges, the opportunity to use new tools and techniques, and there is a special thrill of seeing something work for the first time. But unless you have the luxury of building software solely for your own entertainment, once you’ve got that great new product built, you have to figure out how to get it to your customers. At Vitrium, much of the software that we build is web-based, so the issue of delivering software to our users is really just one of ensuring browser compatibility.

But if you work at a company that delivers software for the desktop, you typically have to build an installer — a second piece of software whose job is to get your actual software successfully running on the users’ machines. There is no joy in writing in installers. I’ve worked at companies where we had to build installers for our software, and it’s amazing how much time and effort was required to build and maintain them.

The reason for that is that the installer is a piece of software whose primary responsibility is to deal with the idiosyncrasies of the millions of computers out there. Different operating systems, different utilities, firewalls, proxy servers, pieces of software that have been removed or modified by the user — the list goes on. These are all things that could potentially cause your software not to work on a given computer. So the installer has to identify and, where possible, resolve these problems. And no matter how hard you try, there will always be a steady stream of issues that come up: combinations of software that the installer doesn’t handle, configurations that have never been seen before, software versions that behave in subtly different ways, even gracefully handling upgrading from previous versions of your own software.

That’s why, at Vitrium, it has always been our goal to produce software that doesn’t need installers. Our applications are delivered over the web. The PDF’s produced by our products use standard Adobe software that already exists on almost every computer on the planet. The result is that we have essentially no support costs related to getting our products onto people’s computers. And that is good for us, and for our customers.

For those of us who build software, creating a new software product is usually fun and exciting. There are new challenges, the opportunity to use new tools and techniques, and there is a special thrill of seeing something work for the first time. But unless you have the luxury of building software solely for your own entertainment, once you’ve got that great new product built, you have to figure out how to get it to your customers. At Vitrium, much of the software that we build is web-based, so the issue of delivering software to our users is really just one of ensuring browser compatibility.

But if you work at a company that delivers software for the desktop, you typically have to build an installer — a second piece of software whose job is to get your actual software successfully running on the users’ machines. There is no joy in writing in installers. I’ve worked at companies where we had to build installers for our software, and it’s amazing how much time and effort was required to build and maintain them.

The reason for that is that the installer is a piece of software whose primary responsibility is to deal with the idiosyncrasies of the millions of computers out there. Different operating systems, different utilities, firewalls, proxy servers, pieces of software that have been removed or modified by the user — the list goes on. These are all things that could potentially cause your software not to work on a given computer. So the installer has to identify and, where possible, resolve these problems. And no matter how hard you try, there will always be a steady stream of issues that come up: combinations of software that the installer doesn’t handle, configurations that have never been seen before, software versions that behave in subtly different ways, even gracefully handling upgrading from previous versions of your own software.

That’s why, at Vitrium, it has always been our goal to produce software that doesn’t need installers. Our applications are delivered over the web. The PDF’s produced by our products use standard Adobe software that already exists on almost every computer on the planet. The result is that we have essentially no support costs related to getting our products onto people’s computers. And that is good for us, and for our customers.