Removing Content Restrictions from PDFs

Disclaimer: Only remove content restrictions from PDFs where you have the permission of the owner to do so.

Scenario: You have the Document Open password, and there is no Permissions Password.

Solution:

• 1. Open the PDF. Under Document Properties > Security > Security Method, change this to No Security.

Scenario: You have the Document Open password, and there is a Permissions Password.

Solution 1 (Preserves all links, bookmarks and content with GUI):

1. Download pdfsam https://pdfsam.org/download-pdfsam-basic/.

2. Install pdfsam.

3. Open pdfsam and select "extract".

4. Drag and drop the PDF into pdfsam.

5. For the "Extract pages", use "1-{total pages}" where {total pages} are the total pages.

6. Click "Run".

Solution 2 (Preserves all links, bookmarks and content but no GUI):

1. 1. Download qpdf (ming64 zip) from https://github.com/qpdf/qpdf/releases/tag/v11.8.0 

   2. Extract qpdf to a folder.

   3. In the qpdf folder, create the batch file "clean.bat":

cd /d %~dp0

.\bin\qpdf.exe --decrypt "%1" "%~dpn1-clean.pdf"

pause

1. 4. In Explorer, drag and drop the pdf onto the batch file. The decrypted pdf will have the word "clean" at the end.

Solution 3 (easy GUI but loses bookmarks and links):

1. 1. Download PDF Arranger from https://github.com/pdfarranger/pdfarranger

   2. Install PDF Arranger.

   3. Open up a PDF in PDF Arranger.

   4. Save the PDF.

   5. All restrictions will be removed, but you may find that all the bookmarks and links no longer work.

Solution 4 (Cannot copy and paste text):

• 1. Print to XPS. Then print the XPS back to PDF.

  2. All restrictions will be removed, however you may find that even if the text looks OK but the text is greeked when copied and pasted.

Solution 5 (Bitmaps everything and text may have errors):

1.  Print to XPS or PDF in bitmap mode or print text as curves (see under Print Options > Advanced).

2. OCR the document in PDF Xchange Viewer or KoFAX (KoFAX has better OCR).

Scenario: The PDF used to be able to be opened, but there is some kind of time limit on it. When the PDF is opened, it is a page saying it is expired.

Solution:

• 1. Open the PDF.

  2. Under Document Properties > Security > Security Method, change this to No Security.

  3. Delete the last page. Sometimes the author includes special scripts on the last page.

  4. Alternatively, disable JavaScript in the PDF reader application.