Is there a way to lock down PDF textbooks so that students can view them only in browsers (Chrome/FireFox/Safari) and cannot download them to their computers? I tried all the PDF xblocks but no luck. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I wouldn’t expect so, in order for a file to be viewed (even in the browser) it must still be downloaded before it can be opened/rendered. There might be some kind of group policy or other registry restriction that can be applied on the user’s computers, but this is a per-workstation policy, not a global tutor configuration. Unless I’ve misunderstood your question, I don’t think this is likely to be an option.
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Hey, I know right? Even my client knows this very well but they still insist on making PDFs undownloadable. I think I’ve figured out a solution to this:
Custom static website rendering a PDF document in an iframe on an OpenEdx course page (Using Iframe Tool feature). Not ideal but it should at least make “stealing” a PDF book a lot more tedious.
Just so they’re aware, this might raise accessibility barriers (depending on implementation).