PDF Documents can be protected by the creator by disabling specific functions in the PDF reader. Some options are for example to prevent printing, copying or editing of documents. One way around those restrictions would be to make simple screenshots and print those screenshots if printing would be disabled. This however is not the best way and there is actually a solution that can remove PDF document restrictions easily.
PDF Unlocker is a free software that can unlock PDF Document restrictions. This is done by moving the pdf document on the shortcut of PDF Unlocker which will remove the restrictions automatically and create a new pdf document without the restrictions.
This pdf document can be printed, edited and copied. PDF Unlocker has a second function. PDF Documents can be password protected to prevent unauthorized access to them. The software provides a way to unlock the pdf document if the user can provide the password that protects it.
Update: PDF Unlocker is no longer free, you can download the latest free version of the PDF unlocker from this location
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I always worry about software like this when I can’t find an author’s direct website. This program is available from many sites. But who is the author and does he have a webpage that describes program details? If not, why not?
Functionality like this is very useful. For instance, Adobe itself seems to protect its own info data sheets so you can’t copy text out. I don’t know why. But a program like this can get past that.
I have owned a similar payware product (Orvis PDF-Recover) for a couple of years and it works fine when I’ve had occasion to use it. A payware product like this could be a useful for companies that don’t like or won’t let you use freeware but yet want the same functionality (it’s only $28.50):
Link:
http://shop.pdf-office.com/product_info.php?products_id=36
Thanks – this sounds very useful.
:O Yes!!! I love you martin!
Be nice Martin if you could segregate the actual user comments in your posts from the linkback references like most other bloggers do. Who links back to you is of no interest to the user.
Interesting software! :D I’ll definitely bear this in mind for the future. Luckily haven’t had to edit any pdfs so far.
Wow. This tool was the BEST thing to happen to me today. I spent all day struggling with a stupid I9 form that the guv’ment decided to secure, thus preventing the editing/creating of Objects. My company’s software specifically requires the use of Objects on the documents so that we can populate data on these fields for our clients. I even called DHS on the phone, and got no help at all. Thanks a ton for this tool! It took about 4 seconds to fix my problem once I got it installed.
As best I can tell, all this is is a simple CMD script that uses GhostScript to open the PDF and then write it back out as a new PDF.
Note — v1.04 is broken. The CMD file has errors in it.
Change the CMD file to the following and it will work (for those who care, I fixed the set command to only take off “.pdf” and added the missing double quotes around the file names that should’ve been there — the script had a single, unbalanced double quote):
@echo off
echo.
echo.
echo This may take a minute, please wait.
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo Converting %1
set ttt=%1
set tt=%ttt:~0,-4%
gswin32c -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sFONTPATH=%windir%/fonts;xfonts;. -sPDFPassword= -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dPassThroughJPEGImages=true -sOutputFile=”%tt%_noPW.pdf” “%1″
REM ‘Written by SMTguru
Thank you, Zathrus. Your script worked like a charm.
Wonderful pdf unlocker ! Thanks !
Hey! I tried running it. It does not work :-O. It outputs a file with exactly the same restrictions!
How?
Works if you just want to remove the password or something, but this tool also removed all the text fields from the PDF so this solution did not keep the PDF functional for me. I’ll have to find something else.
Hi, is there any way to get to the program?
It seems that the website doesn’t have it any more…
maybe someone could send it to me or upload it on rapidshare or sth…
thank you
I have used PDF to print from Abilty Write,to print from Abillty Write no problem,
But I now find if I whish to change the name of my files or folders, I cannot,
What do I do, Thank you,
A working link to the download of the program would be helpful (DUH)
Great post, it’s useful to PDF users. As I know, owner password can be removed, but open password is difficult to crack. I’m using another way to remove the restrictions.
I’m using AnyBizSoft PDF to Word Converter, it can convert protected PDF files. And the original text content, layouts, images can be well preserved. It’s also convenient.
http://www.anypdftools.com/pdf-to-word.html#163
I downloaded this tool for a pdf file that i had rights to access but it would not retain my password info. It did not unlock the file so I uninstalled the program. Now, everytime I go to start my computer it is back and trying to run. I can only find one file for it (in my user files) and I keep deleting it but it keeps coming back. I cannot find a solution anywhere on the internet to solve this problem…BEWARE!
As we all know ,pdf can be protected by pdf password and pdf restriction including copying,printing ,editing etc.Now i can remove all of this usd advanced pdf password 5.0 in seconds,but if you want to do this,make sure you have the right to remove or edit ebooks
You’re a f*** moron. “Free” software? Where on the website does it say the software is free? Watermarks on every page and each alternate page is blank? Is that even usable?