Document protection for online PDFs
Share your documents with more control
Protect an online PDF while giving your audience a great reading experience. Add a password, control where your publication can be embedded and make content harder to copy.
Choose the protection that suits your client materials, reports, catalogs or internal documents.
Try it with your PDF See how it worksProtect access with a password
Require a password to open your cloud-hosted publication.
Keep embeds on your website
Restrict a cloud-hosted publication to a specified website with Protected Embed.
Make copying more difficult
Limit copy, print and download options and make it harder to extract text.
How to protect an online PDF
- Import your PDF. Open your document in FlowPaper and choose how it should look.
- Choose content protections. In Settings, disable text copy and print with Zine, or enable Publication Protection in Elements to make text extraction harder. Apply your settings.
- Choose access settings. Select Publish, then Cloud-hosted. Under Publication Protection, choose a password or Protected Embed and enter your password or website URL.
- Publish and share. Start the upload, then share your publication with its intended audience.
Keep your password safe: FlowPaper cannot recover it. If you lose it, upload the publication again and set a new password.
Read the password and Protected Embed guide →See the copy protection guide →
Choose where to publish
Publish with FlowPaper Cloud or host your publication on your own website or server, depending on your plan. Password protection and Protected Embed described here are configured when publishing to FlowPaper Cloud.
Elements also offers domain locking to limit where a publication can be viewed. See the domain locking instructions →
Control the reading experience
Use the viewer settings to hide the download button when you do not want to offer a direct download. Restrictions make copying less convenient, but cannot stop every form of capture or redistribution.
Learn about the download button →See document protection in action
Watch a walkthrough of password protection, website embedding restrictions and options for copy, print and download controls.
The tutorial also covers lead capture forms for publications shared online.
Explore lead capture →Questions about document protection
Can I stop someone taking a screenshot?
No. Someone who can view content on a screen can capture or photograph it. Protection helps limit access and discourage copying; it cannot guarantee that content will never be copied.
Can a password-protected link be forwarded?
Yes. Anyone with both the link and password can access the publication, so share the password only with your intended readers.
Can I keep a publication on my own server?
Yes. FlowPaper supports self-hosting as well as cloud hosting, depending on your plan. The cloud password and Protected Embed settings above apply to FlowPaper Cloud publications.
Will my publication appear in search results?
Do not rely on an unlisted link to keep a publication private: search engines may find and index cloud-hosted publications. Use the appropriate access settings for content you do not want to share publicly.
Protection options vary by template and plan. Browse more protection questions.
Share your next document with confidence
Choose how readers access and interact with your online publication.
Try FlowPaper with a PDF