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MC441065: Microsoft Purview | Information Protection: Maintain label when creating PDF files from VBA in Office apps (preview)

As recently announced, Microsoft Office is shipping a new feature that enables PDFs created from Office using Export to PDF to inherit the source document’s labels or encryption. Some VBA add-ins may need to be updated to avoid issues when post-processing an encrypted PDF. With this rollout, we are introducing a temporary mitigation to allow you time to update your add-ins.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 93406.

This feature is for VBA developers who use Office fixed format export functions to create PDFs from documents with sensitivity labels and encryption. By default, all PDFs created using Office’s fixed format export functions will automatically inherit the source document’s label or encryption. Some VBA add-ins may need to be updated to avoid issues when post-processing an encrypted PDF.

MC441065: Microsoft Purview | Information Protection: Maintain label when creating PDF files from VBA in Office apps (preview)

When this will happen

This update is now rolling out in preview.

How this will affect your organization

With the new Office Export to PDF feature, by default, all PDFs created using Office’s fixed format export functions will automatically inherit the source document’s label or encryption. However, some VBA add-ins for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint may need to be updated to avoid issues when post-processing an encrypted PDF.

What you need to do to prepare

As the Export to PDF feature launches, we will temporarily disable certain object model arguments in order to allow you time to update your add-ins. These settings will be reenabled via a future rollout once sufficient time has elapsed for add-in updates to be completed. Refer to this blog post for instructions on how to update your Office Add-ins.

Define sensitivity labels and settings in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal.

Learn more

Message ID: MC441065
Published: 2022-09-30
Updated: 2022-09-30
Cloud instance(s): Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant)
Platform(s): Developer, Windows Desktop, World tenant