Chapters

Chapter 1

Introducing PDF and iText
Chapter 2

Using iText's basic building blocks
Chapter 3

Adding content at absolute positions
Chapter 4

Organizing content in tables
Chapter 5

Table, cell, and page events
Chapter 6

Working with existing PDFs
Chapter 7

Making documents interactive
Chapter 8

Filling out interactive forms
Chapter 9

Integrating iText in your web applications
Chapter 10

Brightening up your PDF with color and images
Chapter 11

Choosing the right font
Chapter 12

Protecting your PDF
Chapter 13

PDFs inside-out
Chapter 14

The imaging model
Chapter 15

Page content and structure
Chapter 16

PDF streams

Appendix

Appendix A

Bibliography
Appendix B

Useful links

Chapter 12:
Protecting your PDF

< Chapter 11: Choosing the right font Chapter 13: PDFs inside-out >

Chapter 12 of the book iText in Action 2E covers:

Providing metadata
Compressing and decompressing PDFs
Encrypting documents
Adding digital signatures

In this chapter, you'll discover that you can add different types of metadata to a PDF document. You'll use compression of content streams to reduce the file size, and you'll use the decompression methods to inspect the PDF syntax that is used to describe the content of a page.

In the sections about encryption and digital signatures, you'll protect PDF files with a password, and you'll use public-key cryptography to encrypt, decrypt, and digitally sign a PDF document. You'll work with key stores and certificates, signing documents in different ways. You'll also learn about Certificate and Time Stamp Authorities, about Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs) and the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP).

12.1: Adding metadata
- 12.1.1: The Info dictionary
- 12.1.2: The Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP)
12.2: PDF and compression
- 12.2.1: Compression levels
- 12.2.2: Compressing and decompressing existing files
12.3: Encrypting a PDF document
- 12.3.1: Creating a password-encrypted PDF
- 12.3.2: Public-key encryption
12.4: Digital signatures, OCSP, and timestamping
- 12.4.1: Creating an unsigned signature field
- 12.4.2: Signing a PDF
- 12.4.3: Adding multiple signatures
- 12.4.4: Verifying the signatures in a document
- 12.4.5: Creating the digest and signing externally
- 12.4.6: CRLs, OCSP, and timestamping
- 12.4.7: PDF Advanced Electronic Signature (PAdES) profiles
12.5: Summary

Consult the full table of contents, take a look at the illustrations from this chapter, or try out some of the examples:

Figures

Figure 12.1: Metadata in PDF files
Figure 12.2: A protected public-key encrypted PDF document
Figure 12.3: An opened public-key encrypted PDF document
Figure 12.4: PDFs with signature fields
Figure 12.5: PDF with a certifying signature
Figure 12.6: Document with two signatures, of which one has "validity unknown"
Figure 12.7: Document with two valid signatures
Figure 12.8: Document with one valid and one invalid signature
Figure 12.9: A signed PDF with a timestamp

Chapter 12:Protecting your PDF

Figures

Examples

Chapter 12:
Protecting your PDF