Q: What is the time zone for adding an expiration date to PDF?
A: The expiry date used in All-About-PDF is UTC (Universal Time) and is converted to local time when the document is opened.
Let's look at an example: Say you are in New York (Eastern Standard Time) and set a document to expire on the same day at 12pm (EST). The expiry date in the document is saved as 4pm (UTC). If you send the document to someone in Los Angeles (Pacific Standard Time), the expiry date when opened will be read as 9am PST.
Q: If a user sets the time settings on their PC back to before the PDFe expiry, can they still view the file even though it is actually expired?
A: No, when opening the PDFe file, All-About-PDF PDFe Reader does not obtain the actual date from the computer clock.
Q: I am trying to set a expiry date on the PDF. When I e-mail the PDF to a costumer, they cannot open it as it says it has expired even though I set the expiry date to 2 weeks time. What am I doing wrong?
A: when using the Scripting method of PDF expiry, you should be aware that no all PDF readers support PDF JavaScript and therefore cannot correctly interpret the document’s expiry logic. This will result in the document incorrectly appearing as expired. For a detailed explanation, please see this article below:
https://allaboutpdf.com/add-expiry-date-to-pdf
To ensure that your documents always expire when they should, we recommend using the DRM method instead as it is universal and more secure.