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Anthony-123's avatar
Anthony-123
Iron Contributor
Oct 25, 2023

Adobe is bypassing Document Library permissions to View Only.

We want to create a space for only viewing PDFs and prohibiting downloading. I've created a document library with permissions for Everyone to View Only. I can verify that with the built in PDF reader and SharePoint functions, the document is View Only. However, if you open the PDf with the Adobe Document Cloud app, you can download the document.  

Is there any way to fix this?  

 

Edit: Actually, for added context, I just noticed that my test (normie) account only shows Open in Adobe Acrobat while my admin account shows both Adobe Acrobat and Open in Browser. 

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  • karen_dredske's avatar
    karen_dredske
    Steel Contributor
    Oct 25, 2023
    There used to be a permission level called "View" that would only allow you to view Office documents and PDFs. However, with the rollout of SharePoint Advanced Management, they appear to have removed this permission level without mentioning it to anyone. If you have an entire document library to apply this to. . . you have to purchase a SharePoint Advanced Management license and run some PowerShell to stop downloads. The license runs commercial tenants $3/user/month right now.

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/advanced-management
    • Anthony-123's avatar
      Anthony-123
      Iron Contributor
      Oct 25, 2023
      That's odd. I currently have View Only permissions for Everyone without having to jump through any hoops.

      I don't understand what this is. They're pay-walling features that we've previously been using?
      • karen_dredske's avatar
        karen_dredske
        Steel Contributor
        Oct 25, 2023
        Can you do it with anything new? I ran into this with some folks I have been assisting with their Stream classic migration where they needed to restrict downloads. We had it all setup and it worked one week. . . then the next week all of the sudden it didn't work. . . and we looked and the permissions had changed from View to Read. It was very frustrating. Then, when I tried to create a new permission level - even in my dev tenant - the View only options (no download) are all missing. You can't select them anymore. I'm seeing this in Education and Commercial tenants. If you are in GCC, maybe it hasn't hit you yet? Or maybe it is just rolling out as I discovered it over the past 4 weeks or so.

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