Use the Sensitivity feature in Office to apply sensitivity labels to PDFs

Supported on: At least Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7

Registry

HKCU software\policies\microsoft\office\16.0\common\fixedformat

Value name: disablepdfprotection

Enabled: disablepdfprotection = 0

Disabled: disablepdfprotection = 1

Description

This policy setting controls whether sensitivity labels powered by Microsoft Purview Information Protection are applied to PDFs created in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. If you enable this policy setting or don’t configure it, PDFs will inherit the sensitivity label and encryption from the source Word, Excel, and PowerPoint document. If you disable this policy setting, PDFs created in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint do not inherit their source file’s sensitivity labels and encryption. When the source file is encrypted, users who do not have the rights to remove protection cannot export to PDF. Note: This policy setting only applies to subscription versions of Office, such as Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. For more information about this setting, see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2220953.