If you sell eBooks from your own website or other platforms, it’s a good idea to password-protect and encrypt files which are to be downloaded. PDFs are a good format for this purpose.
In this article, I will be describing how to do this with LibreOffice.
LibreOffice is a private, free and open source office suite — the successor to the OpenOffice project.
It has its own formats, but it is also compatible with Microsoft Office 365 files (.doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx). A not-for-profit organisation backs it.
If you don’t already have a copy of LibreOffice, you can download one from: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download-libreoffice/
Creating a PDF Document
Start by opening a ‘.doc’ or ‘.odt’ document and select:File > Export As > Export As PDF...
If you only want to create a PDF document, click Export
Otherwise, choose the ‘Security’ tab.
Permission and Encryption
Click Set Passwords
Set both open and permission passwords:
Click: OK > Export
and save the PDF to your chosen location.
Share the open password so that the document can be read, and the permission password to allow the document to be changed.