: How can I protect my job from a client publishing it elsewhere? I am designing a brochure of 1,872 pages for a client. This client is asking me provide him with a copy of the job. I am

@Angela777

I would suggest you convert all the text in the file to curves. For that, select all text and press CTRL+Q. This would make text uneditable. To check if all texts are converted into curves, go to text statistics and see if there's any font displayed, if not then all texts are converted into curves. Secondly, insert a watermark and export it to PDF in a very low quality so that it would be unclear in printing. Hope that helps.

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@Caterina889

Unanswered Question #1 : What is in your current contract?

What is written down and signed currently? What has he promised in writing? What have you promised in writing?


"Starting work without a contract is like putting on a condom after taking a home pregnancy test"


F*ck You, Pay Me by Mike Monteiro

FYPM is a WONDERFUL talk about the importance of contracts, and the importance of getting them right. This review of the talk has some good "cliff notes" that I'll blatantly put here:


Contracts protect both parties. This means if anything happens on either end it is stipulated in the contract.
Don’t start work without a contract.
Don’t blindly accept their terms. If they’re an established company then they have hired a lawyer to write up a contract. It is important to go through the contract with your lawyer and negotiate if you find something you don’t agree with.
Don’t start work without a contract.
Anticipate negotiation, but don’t back down on important stuff. Such as:


IP transfers on full payment: This is when the work you have done is yours until the client pays you in full. If they were to go ahead and use the work before paying then you are legally allowed to sue them.
Termination: This is a fee that the client has to pay you for terminating the contract before completion. This will cover you for the work you have turned down, to be able to work on their problem.
Liability: This is when something has gone wrong and you now bare the responsibility for dealing with that problem.

Don’t start work without a contract.
Lawyers talk to lawyers. If you are dealing with a client who has a lawyer on the phone, then you must get your lawyer to speak to each other otherwise you may end up agreeing to things you didn’t want to due to nerves.
Don’t start work without a contract.
Be specific and confident talking about money. Talking about money is a nerve racking to talk about. I have experienced this when quoting people for work and it really is a hard thing to talk about when asked in person. If you’re trying to convince somebody over how much something costs Monteiro emphasises not to start with ‘mmm’ as this may lose your client. If you know how much something costs then you should tell them and in the case of not knowing then say you don’t know and you will let them know as soon as possible. Monteiro mentions that you should always talk like you know what you’re talking about even when you don’t, because you can always find out later.
Don’t start work without a contract.


Is there a contract in place? or are you half way done without anything signed?

Give your Client options.

Provide tiered options. Random example that I would start with:


for $, you get printed copies provided by me (Provided upon full payment)
for $$, you get a low quality, highly watermarked PDF (Provided upon full payment)
for $$$, you get a medium quality, medium watermarked PDF (Provided upon full payment)
for $$$$, you get a high quality, rarely watermarked PDF (Provided upon full payment)
for $$$$$, you get the production copy and all rights (Provided upon full payment)


Give him options and let him decide what he wants to pay for. Your time is money and you deserve to be compensated.

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@Eichhorn212

Agreeing with the solution proposed by @go -meek, but perhaps the best way to avoid the issue would be printing the brochure yourself. Tell him that you can only give a printed proof, digital files after receiving the payment. It is fair, he can see the brochure and make annotations in it, you keep the files. Doesn't need to be the highest resolution either, as to avoid him reproducing it elsewhere.

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@Debbie163

There's ways to add security features on your PDF that will prevent people from printing, editing or extracting elements from the file. There's also watermarks that can be added. BUT there's also ways to bypass all this, so it's not 100% reliable. I could also easily imagine it must have taken you a lot of work to do this work, and your client could easily invest in finding someone to remove any security you may add to that brochure.

So the best thing to avoid your file being used for printing is simply to lower its quality and make it an unacceptable quality for printing.

You can export a PDF from your Corel Draw file and then use Adobe Acrobat Pro to change all the pages to image-only, and to a low screen quality (eg. 90ppi and less.) Even if your client has the idea of going to a print shop or using another designer to work on the files, everybody will tell him/her the same thing; your files are low resolutions :)

Having a contract is nice but that's never a guarantee to get paid. By giving low resolution files to your client and requiring your payments, you keep the control and power over the situation. The client won't have choice to comply. And that's fair too.



Here is a link with instructions how to quickly change all your 1800+ pages into a low resolution PDF with images/JPG only.

Create a PDF from illustrator without being able to see the individual objects




One thing for sure: Never give a PDF proof with vector and/or high
resolution content that is unprotected and NEVER EVER GIVE YOUR
EDITABLE FILES! Proofs should be low resolutions PDF or JPG, not "print-ready" or editable CorelDraw files! You give those files after you got your money. In fact, the editable CorelDraw files should be sold separately at least 3x the price of the project! Normally, designers do not provide editable files unless there's a budget for this.


One last thing... Please, get paid, get down payments as you begin your projects; split the full amount of that project in many milestones and wait for your payments before sending proofs or doing any revisions. The way you're telling your issue, it sounds like you haven't received any money at all and did an enormous brochure for that client. I can see why you might be very anxious about all this, a 1800+ pages booklet requires a lot of work!

If the client likes your illustrations but doesn't want to pay for them, remove the illustrations. That's it.

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@Yeniel278

It's not technically possible to have a file that is secured for printing while having the ability to read it. That is because rendering for screen and print is the same thing. Despite this, PDF files have a flag to disable printing; this is more of an annoyance than an actual block.

The best thing you can do is rasterize the graphics to a low-enough resolution to be adequate on screen. Perhaps keeping the images on your server and show them on demand.

Better is to have your client on contract saying he will pay you xxx if he prints it. But bigger yet, why do you have a client that is not paying you anything?

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