Restricting Editing to Clients

I used to password protect all my PDF’s of finished work that I sent to the client. I’m running into issues when they send it to print because the printer can’t open it. Do you know of a good way to protect me from my clients editing my work or passing it on to another designer? Just saving it without preserving illustrator capabilities is not enough; I know from myself that I can pull apart just about any design that way.

See if this article is helpful:
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/save-pdf-read-only-46112.html

Placing the closed PDF back into Indesign and then reexporting it again should have it closed fully.

Just curious, is this something everyone does?

I don’t see that it makes any difference. My file is coming from ID- if I open the PDF in Acrobat or Illustrator, I can still edit the text.

but once you reopen a new document in indesign and place the pdf in it, and then reexport can you still access the file?

yes, in acrobat and illustrator

Then exporting as a jpeg and replacing it in and exporting as a pdf—long about route! I would only do that on something the client would have reason to constantly change. ie. a specific event flyer most likely is not going to be reused.

The quality won’t be as good, but I guess that’s a good idea