This is a trick I've used once, a long time ago, and had to rediscover, so I"m writing it up here so I won't have to go through this again, in the future.
When you create PDF files, you can set an attribute to lock it down and prevent anyone from printing it. So, you get a document that's not particularly easy to read on a PC, that you also can't cut/paste/copy text to/from, and that you can't even print out.
I remembered that there is a relatively straightforward solution to the problem, just not how to do it, so I went to Google and within a few minutes got the clues I needed:
pdf2ps
ps2pdf
These are two neat little utilities that are legion in Linux. The first converts PDF files into the PostScript ("ps") format; the second, converts PostScript files into PDF files. The PostScript specification doesn't (apparently) have a switch you can turn on to restrict printing. The solution: covert the restricted PDF file into a PostScript file and then convert it back again.
As they say in the music business, "Viola".
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