How can I remove the printing protection from password-protected PDF files?

linux pdf password-protection
Miloš picture Miloš · Jan 9, 2013 · Viewed 8.9k times · Source

How can I remove the printing protection from password-protected PDF files?

Answer

Miloš picture Miloš · Jan 9, 2013

When PDF documents are visible but not printable there's an easy workaround when you are using GNU/Linux.

To do that, you have to use the two step procedure:

  1. Print the pdf to postscript

  2. Revert back to normal pdf file

    $ pdftops [your_protected_pdf_document.pdf] out.ps

$ pstopdf [out.ps] broken_protection_pdf_document.pdf

And it's done. There is no more password protectin for your pdf document.

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