PDF encryption requires two passwords: the "user password" to open and view the file with restricted permissions, the "owner password" to access the file with all permission.
This small sample shows how to encrypt a file so that it can be viewed, but not printed..
PDDocument doc = PDDocument.load("filename.pdf"); // Define the length of the encryption key. // Possible values are 40 or 128 (256 will be available in PDFBox 2.0). int keyLength = 128; AccessPermission ap = new AccessPermission(); // disable printing, everything else is allowed ap.setCanPrint(false); // owner password (to open the file with all permissions) is "12345" // user password (to open the file but with restricted permissions, is empty here) StandardProtectionPolicy spp = new StandardProtectionPolicy("12345", "", ap); spp.setEncryptionKeyLength(keyLength); spp.setPermissions(ap); doc.protect(spp); doc.save("filename-encrypted.pdf"); doc.close();