Learn how a system administrator can turn off the Share text to WhatsApp option in the Acrobat extension for all managed users.
When a user opens a PDF with the Acrobat extension, the PDF opens in the extension's viewer in the browser. If the user selects text in that viewer and opens the right-click menu, the Share text to WhatsApp option sends the selected text to WhatsApp.
As an administrator, you can turn off this option for everyone in your organization. Acrobat reads administrator policies through the browser's managed storage, so once you set the policy, the option no longer appears for any user. You define these policies in a schema file (schema.json) that the extension reads through the storage.managed API.
The extension supports the DisableShareTextToWhatsApp policy in its schema.json file. To turn off the option, set this policy to true.
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{ "type": "object", "properties": { "DisableShareTextToWhatsApp": { "title": "Disable Share text to WhatsApp option", "description": "To disable the \"Share text to WhatsApp\" option in the PDF viewer context menu, set DisableShareTextToWhatsApp to true.", "type": "string" } } } |
Press Windows + R, enter regedit in the Open field, and then select OK.
Go to the registry key for your browser. Create the key if it doesn't exist.
Create a string value named DisableShareTextToWhatsApp and set it to true.
Close the registry editor.
To confirm the policy, open chrome://policy/ in the browser.
Note: For Chromium, you can also use the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive instead of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
Set the policy through MCX preferences for the Chrome bundle com.google.Chrome.extensions.efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj, or the Chromium bundle org.chromium.Chromium.extensions.efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj.
Create a property list (plist) file with this configuration:
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>com.google.Chrome.extensions.efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj</key> <dict> <key>DisableShareTextToWhatsApp</key> <dict> <key>state</key> <string>always</string> <key>value</key> <string>true</string> </dict> </dict> </dict> </plist> |
In the plist, the first key is the bundle ID. Each policy holds its metadata, and its setting appears in the value key. The state key controls how often macOS enforces the policy, so set it to always to keep the policy in place.
Import the configuration with dscl. Replace admin_username with an administrator username and configuration.plist with the path to your file.
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$ dscl -u admin_username /Local/Default -mcximport /Computers/local_computer configuration.plist |
If dscl reports an invalid path, create a node for the local computer, and then import the configuration again.
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$ GUID=`uuidgen` $ ETHER=$(ifconfig en0 | awk '/ether/ {print $2}') $ dscl -u admin_username /Local/Default -create /Computers/local_computer $ dscl -u admin_username /Local/Default -create /Computers/local_computer RealName "Local Computer" $ dscl -u admin_username /Local/Default -create /Computers/local_computer GeneratedUID $GUID $ dscl -u admin_username /Local/Default -create /Computers/local_computer ENetAddress $ETHER $ dscl -u admin_username /Local/Default -mcximport /Computers/local_computer configuration.plist |
To apply the change immediately, run this command. Replace username with the affected user's account name.
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$ sudo mcxrefresh -n username |
Note: If Chrome runs with the Managed bookmarks extension, the policy loads within 10 seconds. To load it right away, select Reload policies in chrome://policy/.
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