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I have received a medical document as a locked pdf. I can unlock it fine. But I want to save it unlocked. I tried

  • Save As after unlocking it, but its still locked.
  • Microsoft Print to PDF, it still prints it.
  • But even if print to pdf worked, it would save it as an image. I would prefer it as text.
  • I tried PDFChef (a PDF editor) hoping I could add something and then save it. It wont let me edit it.
  • Acrobat can normally let you add text etc - not this time.

Any idea, how I can unlock it.

Rohit Gupta
  • 5,096

1 Answers1

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The simplest way to preserve all the contents of a secured PDF with only damaging encryption (as needed by signatures) is to "fix" the file as decrypted.

This does NOT mean "reprinting" or rebuilding via online methods, into another PDF format with losses, but simply -decrypt the file using qpdf or very similar command line tools.

The one requirement ALL pdf "un-lockers" have is you must know any "opener" password. And if a file requires that then also pass to qpdf as --password=known USER password

Typical command for a file without password is qpdf --decrypt in.pdf out.pdf Typical command when open password required is

qpdf --decrypt --password=blah-blah in.pdf out.pdf

Beware paths and passwords with spaces certainly on windows need "double quotes"

qpdf --decrypt --password="blah blah" "my folder\in.pdf" "my folder\out.pdf"

Last or latest release will be available at https://github.com/qpdf/qpdf/releases

K J
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