Trollgod's gift

[grrraall]

Hi!

Some of you may be familiar with the Trollgod's Gift T&T solo that Ken wrote for Longest Night 2008.

I have the PDF file but, unlike other T&T products that are in the .pdf format, it cannot be printed!! I had to print it using screenshots, but it blurrs the letters.

Has someone got any idea how to solve this problem? PDF files are great, but I still prefer the printed copies.

[ProfGremlin]

Grrraall, is that solo freely offered somewhere? I don't have a copy to play with and can't recall if Ken sent that directly to Trollhalla members or not. In general, when a PDF is created you can apply security to it through either a certificate or password. From there various options arise one of which is to restrict printing. Even with the full Adobe Acrobat you can't access these restricted options without the correct certificate or password used to create the security in the first place. That said, once you save your security settings a popup displays indicating that some third party applications don't respect these security settings.

I've created a secured PDF this morning which restricted printing using Adobe Acrobat 9. I've tried printing through both FoxIt Reader (my preferred PDF reader) and PDFTK Builder. Neither one was able to get past the security. To go any further you'll need to try out other applications unless a fellow troll has a workable solution.

Here's a couple of ideas for working with your screen shots. If you have access to Gimp, Paintshop Pro, Photoshop, etc. try using a Sharpening Mask. In addition, if you have the option in your image editor, Remove JPG artifacts and try the Color Correction, Color Balancing, and possibly a Clarity filter (this last is in Paintshop Pro). Perhaps changing the color depth to grey scale will help as well. Double check your print options, too. If you have them set for a low resolution output that'll make even crisp, clean screen images blurry on paper. That's the best I can suggest without knowing more about what you have to work with.

I have to wonder at the motivation of restricting printing in a solo. Was it to foil a greedy individual from redistributing his work?

[mgtremaine]

PDF security relies on software honoring it. If you open that same PDF is something like Envice, under Linux, it will mostly likely print with out issue. I can't be more specific then that with out looking at it.

-Mike

[mahrundl]

From recollection, this was a Trollhalla special, and shouldn't be available other than from Ken.

I have a PDF copy (sent to me by Ken because my hard copy got lost in the mail) which appears to be print-enabled (I don't have a printer connected at present), but I don't have permission to distribute it to anyone else.

Grrraall, don't assume that it was Ken who put the print restriction on the file. I don't know where your copy came from, but unless it was direct from Ken, the restriction may have been added by someone else. What is the name of the file?

Also, I believe that it was originally printed by Outlaw Press before everything blew up, so the restrictions on the PDF could come from there.

[grrraall]

I received my copy from Ken, I'm a long-time Trollhalla member.
The file name is Trollgod's Gift (I think I renamed it, though).
Originally, the file was sent in both WORD and PDF.
I'll try to find the original file sent by Ken. If I can't find it, then I'll ask him to re-send it to me.

Thanks

[mahrundl]

If Ken doesn't have his original - I seem to recall that he lost some files in a computer crash a while back, but I don't know if this was one of them - I'll happily pass my copy along, as long as he's OK with it. Or send it back to him, and he can distribute it as he sees fit.

[grrraall]

Good idea, I'll do that.

[Aramis of Erak]

An unlocker program, like PDFKey, can remove those restrictions right quick.

[grrraall]

Thanks, Aramis.
I don't know what happened with that particular file. It had no restriction.
Anyway, the problem is now solved ! :-)
(I don't know how, though. Curious, I've been trying several times and on two different computers)