How to create PDF with password protection (Windows)

You can create PDF files for free, without pricey software (called PDF printer,) namely Adobe Acrobat. Bullzip, the free PDF printer for Windows, has many useful functions including password protection.

Strictly speaking, Bullzip is free for personal and commercial use up to 10 users. For other cases, it's not free but cheap though: bioPDF

Bullzip PDF Printer (Free, Windows)

Download Bullzip from their website

Visit Bullzip website and download the installation program by clicking the link Download PDF Printer x.x.x.xxxx from North America/Europe. This program supports for multilanguages by default (i.e. English version), and so a translation program is not necessary even if you also speak non-English languages (like Chinese, Arabic, etc.)

Installation

You will see the downloaded ZIP file; in Windows, you can extract (i.e. open) it by right-clicking its icon, then click Extract All...

To open the extracted folder, you will see a single program Bullzip_Printer_....exe so just open it. You will see Bullzip's instruction wizard, so just follow the instruction, and complete the installation.

After the installation, you can close these windows, and delete both the ZIP file and extracted folder.

Create a PDF file

As long as you can print it out, you can create a PDF file from any type of document. In Internet Explorer, for example, just right-click anywhere (except for links) and click Print....

You will see a list of printers you have, including Bullzip PDF Printer you just installed. Select Bullzip PDF Printer, and click Print.

A pop-up dialog may be appear. Click Save (you can also configure the settings such as the file name if needed.)

Create a password-protected PDF file

PDF can have two types of password protection: Owner Password and User Password.

Owner Password: An owner who has the owner password can do anything . . . to read the document, to print it out, to copy certain texts/images on it to his/her clipboard, etc.
User Password: Users who have the user password can read the document, but to print it out and/or to copy its contents to their clipboard may/may not be prohibited. Of course, the user password must be different from the owner password.

In the pop-up Bullzip dialog, click Security tab on the top, give an owner password. If you want to prohibit particular readers (users) to print out the document or/and copy it to their clipboard, give a user password as well, and configure the user's previllege.

Sample

Here's a sample. The owner password is passOwner (case-sensitive), and the user password is passUser. Under the user's previllege, you will notice that you can't print it out or copy its contents to your clipboard.