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Removing a password from a PDF on Linux

Sun, 2007-08-12 09:31 — elliot

I just bought a PDF, legally, from a publisher's website. However, in their wisdom, they decided it would be a good idea to password protect all legally-purchased PDFs. This means that each time you open the PDF using Acrobat Reader, you have to remember and type in the password to read it. (Evince, the built-in PDF viewer in Linux, allows you to permanently save the password, but I tend to use Acrobat as it copes better with some PDFs.)

So, if you know the password for a PDF and want to remove it, you can use the command line tools pdftops and ps2pdf to free your PDF from its chains.

  • Install pdftops. On Ubuntu, you can do:
    apt-get install xpdf-utils
  • Install ps2pdf. I think this is already included with a default Ubuntu.
  • Convert the PDF to a postscript file, using the password:
    pdftops -upw <password> <file>.pdf
  • Convert the resulting postscript (which is now sans password) back to a PDF:
    ps2pdf <file>.ps

The only thing you lose are any PDF-specific features which don't translate to postscript, e.g. hyperlinks.

Remember, this only works if you know the password for the PDF: it doesn't break the PDF password for you.

Comments

Fri, 2009-06-05 14:56 — Eka (not verified)

Thanks

It was really handy thanks

Sat, 2009-02-28 02:40 — Felipe Alvarez (not verified)

opensuse works great

opensuse 11.1 KDE version has ALL of those programs already pre-installed. This tut worked perfectly for my password protected PDF. Thanks for posting!

Felipe

Sun, 2009-03-01 23:07 — elliot

Glad to be of assistance :)

Glad to be of assistance :)

Mon, 2008-09-29 09:34 — Guest (not verified)

wine app

Hi, I tried using the PDF to PS then PS to PDF method but I found the resulting pdf quality unsatisfactory, ( loss of bookmarks navigation, page sizing wrong, resolution pixelated etc...)

I ended up using this windows app:

http://www.a-pdf.com/security/restrictions_remover.htm

and installed it on Ubuntu under Wine ( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wine )

The pdf tool trial version is fully functional for 15 days

It worked fine and was a very simple process.

The resulting PDF was unlocked and a perfect clone of the original.

Note: I used this on an E-Book I've just purchased and have the rights to. I just don't like entering my password everytime I open it! :-)

Mon, 2008-09-29 18:39 — elliot

Sounds like a good solution.

Sounds like a good solution.

Tue, 2008-09-16 09:23 — Adolix Split & Merge PDF (not verified)

what permissions

does this pdftops,pstopdf scheme allow me to modify the permissions of the file? for example, if the PDF does not allow me to print me, can I modify this setting?

Thu, 2007-08-16 14:52 — Fnor (not verified)

Better use pdftk

Pdftk is a packaged on Debian an should be in many other distributions.
If not, it can be downloaded at http://www.accesspdf.com/pdftk/

apt-get install pdftk
pdftk secured.pdf input_pw foopass output unsecured.pdf

As ps is not used, links are not lost and pdftk can do much more for you.

Mon, 2008-05-19 16:20 — Guest (not verified)

But pdftk needs OWNER

But pdftk needs OWNER password and to use the method decribed above you only need USER pass.

Wed, 2008-08-27 12:42 — Guest (not verified)

qpdf

qpdf can decrypt a file with password. And don't have to depend on java crap.

Mon, 2008-06-16 20:31 — elliot

Thanks for clarifying.

Thanks for clarifying.

Thu, 2007-08-16 19:39 — elliot

Aha, great! I hadn't heard

Aha, great! I hadn't heard of that application.

Thu, 2009-06-18 14:21 — Guest (not verified)

Ubuntu

I don't know about the other distro's but in Ubuntu but if you know the password you can simply open up the PDF and then print to file (pdf)