PDFs with DRM

[ratcreature]

My local library "lends" ebooks, i.e. you download a PDF file but it will only open for two weeks and it only opens with the actual Acrobat Reader, not the non-proprietary PDF-viewers. I "borrowed" a Spanish grammar workbook, and it being a workbook I'd like to print the worksheets on my level to do them. And the ebook actually allows printing in the Acrobat Reader, but the result looks very low resolution and bad quality. Is this some perverted outgrowth of the DRM or can I do something, like fiddling with something in the Acrobat Reader, to make print output normal?

Comments

[pne]

It's probably the DRM; I believe that the permission setting for printing has three possible values: "disable", "low resolution only", and "enable" (or the like).

[ratcreature]

Urgh. What an idiotic way to make your ebook version of grammar worksheets useless. I mean, seriously, if I had borrowed the paper version I'd have copied the worksheet pages from paper, because you can't (well, shouldn't) write in library books. And if I had paid for the ebook, I'd still want to do the work on a sheet of paper.

[baggyeyes]

Can you select text? It is tedious to copy/paste into a text editor, but that is the only workaround I can see.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, but that's even worse than the low resolution, because it's the modern kind of grammar workbook, that partly depends on layout and pictures for the stuff you have to complete.

[miriam_e]

It's hard to see what publishers are actually trying to accomplish in making their products harder to use. I actually think that if they want to lock up their books and make them harder to use then we should let them have their way, and just not use them.

This kind of sick "protection" is what motivates people to spend time on undoing DRM locks. You might find some tools here that might help:
http://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/author/apprenticealf/

I try to avoid PDF like the awful plague that it is. It is a one-way format -- easy to move stuff into it, but hell to get it back out without losing styles and formatting. I know it isn't always possible to avoid PDF, but I will never give Adobe any of my money -- not since the Dimitry Skylarov incident.

I generally refuse to buy locked ebooks anyway, after of some nasty experiences I've had being locked out of my legitimately bought books. I only buy ebooks that don't have locks (e.g. from Baen Books), or ones I can remove the locks from.

The one thing you can guarantee with ebooks that have DRM encumbrances on them is that they will sooner or later lock you out.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, I don't buy DRM ebooks either. I mean, if they cost about as much as the physical versions, they ought to be at least equally functional, and they shouldn't be able to suddenly take it back, as if I only had a temporary license to the book, rather than actually having purchased a copy.