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Forum Discussion

shoes70's avatar
shoes70
New member | Level 2
29 days ago

Why can users edit my PDF files in shared links with view-only access?

I have a PDF I'm trying to share out, view only, to everyone who has the link. I have it set to View only. I have the folder set to View only. But when I share the link, the full PDF edit tools are avaiable and anyone can edit (or write all over) the PDF. This seems to be a Dropbox error.

 

Here's the file — see for yourself. [Removed as per Community Guidelines]

 

Any ideas how to shut off edit capabilities? Needless to say, I'm testing this logged out and in an incognito browser.

 

S

 

  • Rich's avatar
    Rich
    Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II

    shoes70 wrote:

    I have it set to View only. I have the folder set to View only. But when I share the link, the full PDF edit tools are avaiable and anyone can edit (or write all over) the PDF.


    They can't edit your original, and no one else would be able to see their edits. It just allows them to edit and save a copy to their own Dropbox account, if they wish. View-only links allow download access as well, so this is no different from someone downloading (or saving) a copy for themselves, and editing it offline.

     


    Needless to say, I'm testing this logged out and in an incognito browser.

    You should see that you can't save the file unless you sign in, and if you do sign in with a different account, the only option is to save a copy to your own Dropbox.