Encrypt Your PDFs in Just a Few Steps

I personally like PDFs because I can encrypt them, thus ensuring that my documents are secured. If you want a tool to help you do that you’ll probably focus on those that fit your needs, and come with an affordable price tag. Batch PDF Encrypt is a small, handy piece of software which promises to encrypt your PDFs with just a few clicks.

With a price of $0 and no special requirements, this application is surely worth taking into consideration when creating your software arsenal.

There are two types of encryption offered: Password and Certificate. First and foremost, you will load the PDFs to be customized. This action can be performed either by adding the files manually, loading a folder at once or by using the Drag and Drop function.

Worth mentioning is that Batch PDF Encrypt can’t determine duplicates except the ones that originate from the same folder. So, be careful which files you select. If you notice something wrong with the list you can use the Remove section button to erase some files. If you want to list PDFs in a certain order, the Move up and Move Down buttons are also available.

The Password type will enable you to choose an owner, confirm and open password. When selecting to confirm a password, you also have to select to allow content copy or screen reader. One other parameter that you can adjust is the Print options: Low resolution or High resolution.

Last, but not least, comes the Edit function. The options provided are: create, insert, delete and rotate pages; filling-in form fields and signing; commenting, filling-in form fields and signing or all the actions except page extraction. These are all very good options which will help you thoroughly control what changes are made to your documents.

The tests I’ve performed revealed that you have to use the same password for all three fields, a feature that might hinder some users because in order to ensure a better protection you should use separate passwords for different actions. That also depends on how safe are the passwords, and how bad you need to protect your documents. So, a suggestion for future releases is the possibility to choose separate passwords for the fields in question.

The Certificate section will help you secure your PDFs without adding a password. This security method can be very useful if you’re having problems finding a good password. You basically want people to see your documents without being able to copy them.

However, you can’t create separate certificates; you’ll have to make the needed selection each time you run the application; a downside in my opinion because it would have been a helpful addition, instead of forcing the user to customize the program at each use.

The RAM usage will maintain at about 48 MB, so an average computer should do just fine. One great thing is that it won’t increase even when it’s processing your files. After you’ve set all these needed parameters, all that’s left for you to do is to choose the Output folder. By default, the Documents folder is selected, but you can, of course, change it to whatever folder you want.

You obviously cannot add a new password to an already encrypted file, if you accidentally select an already encrypted file; the application will show an error and simply skip to the next file. I’ve tested Batch PDF Encrypt using 176 PDFs and it behaved perfectly. To conclude, Batch PDF Encrypt is a small, very easy to use software that will help you secure your PDF files in a few steps. The fact that you can process multiple files at a time is surely a plus.

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