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Welcome to the Drumlin Security Knowledgebase

This Wiki Knowledgebase provides practical information relating to the creation, use and security of PDFs documents, together with articles relating to the secure distribution of ePUB and Microsoft Office Documents (Word, PowerPoint, Excel).

The widely used Portable Document Format (PDF) for page-based documents was introduced by Adobe in 1993. It is based in large part on the Postscript page description language for modern printers, which had been developed in the late 1970s/early 1980s. In 2008 the specification for PDFs was made available by Adobe as a royalty free open standard and adopted by the International Standards Organization (ISO32000-1). Although perhaps the most widely used document exchange format, the PDF Specification and the implementations in most PDF readers, are subject to security weaknesses. For a discussion of PDF vulnerabilities and insecurity of many widely used PDF readers see the PDF Insecurity website and published papers. You can view the latest and recent security bulletins from Adobe here: Adobe PDF Reader vulnerabilities.

One of the most important features of PDF documents is they are defined by a PAGE BASED model - this describes how individual pages in the document are made up, in terms of the text, the fonts used, graphical objects, interactive elements and possibly other features associated with the page. This PAGE BASED model means that when you look at a PDF page on-screen or on printed output, it should always look the same and as specified by the designer. This is completely different from formats such as ePUB and HTML, which are not page based - they are effectively a linear stream of items, one after another, with limited "layout" elements (ePUB3 and HTML5 have improved on this of course, but they are still very much flexible, flowable formats). The two approaches have been designed independently, with a major aim of formats like ePUB being to allow the text to be the dominant element, re-sizable and re-flowable, ignoring the page concept and focusing on the size and orientation of the device on which it is viewed. ePUB and its variants and versions is the most widely used format for reading eBooks documents on mobile devices, including of course Amazon Kindle, Nook and other specialized ebook reader devices.

Quick links

Main PDF topics Guidance articles Javelin Secure PDF readers Webdoxx Secure Document handling
Specifications and Standards Preparing PDFs for Printing Javelin Readers - Overview Web-based Document Viewers
File Structure Preparing PDFs for Viewing Javelin3/Javelin3Pro for Windows 8+ Webdoxx PDF Viewer
Security Security Recommendations Javelin for Windows 7+ Webdoxx Powerpoint Viewer
Page Size and Orientation Screen Capture Javelin3 for Apple macOS 13+ Webdoxx ePUB Viewer
Watermarking Markup and Annotations Javelin for Apple macOS 10-12 Webdoxx Digital Rights Management
Creation and Editing Software Accessibility Javelin3 for Android 9+ Webdoxx Printing
Viewing Software Personalization and stamping Javelin for Apple iOS/iPadOS Webdoxx Annotation
Authentication Tracking use and misuse Javelin for other platforms Webdoxx Catalogs
Digital Rights Management (DRM) Distribution of secured files Javelin and the Drumlin DRM Webdoxx Access
PDF Forms Forms and Interaction Drumlin DRM File Formats
Viewing Hardware Learning Management Systems (LMS)