Prevent users from opening PDFs in Reader

Question

We use a LiveCycle form, but don't utilize Reader Extensions as all of our internal users should have Adobe Pro installed. However, there are a handful (often new employees or people working from new systems), that either don't have Pro installed yet or have Adobe Reader opening PDFs by default.

Is there any way to either prevent a form from opening in Reader, or determine when a PDF is opened with Reader and display a message? The latter is ideal, as we could direct our users to see IT staff to install Pro.

Answer 1

This should be possible, see this link: http://www.serhatdundar.com/javascript-inside-pdf-detect-browser-acrobat-reader-version for more information.

Basically the link confirms that it is possible in Javascript (running within Reader or Acrobat) to detect which variation of the application is being used. Given that you can create PDF files with an "open script" - a script run when the file is being opened, that should answer your question.

1. Put an open script in all of your PDF forms.
2. User opens the PDF, the script is run.

The script then does the following:

1. Check application variation to detect Reader (as opposed to Pro)
2. Show dialog box with appropriate information if the variation is Reader.