Unlock Secured PDF to Print, Edit and Copy Text

PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file format suitable for publishing, reading and printing. It will preserve exactly the same layouts and format. No matter you open a PDF in what software, it will looks the same. As comparison, Microsoft Word Document is suitable for editing, but not suitable for publishing, because it will looks slightly different if you open it in different software.

PDF is so popular that you will see them everyday. Sometimes when you get a PDF file, you cannot open it or cannot print it, edit it, or copy text or image from it. It is locked, it is a secured PDF. When you want to open it or turn off protection for printing, editing and copying, you will be asked for a password. There are two types of protection and password, one for opening, and one for printing, editing and copying.

The first type of password is called Open Password or User Passwords. With this password, the whole file is encrypted. Without knowing the password, you cannot open it, not to mention printing, editing or copying. The file is totally useless to you. You can only crack it by brute force, which will takes you months to hundreds of years to get back the password. The length of time depends on the power of your computer and the complexity of the password. This article will NOT tell you how to unlock Open Password protected PDF files.

The second type of password is called Owner Password. If you want to turn off protection for printing, editing and copying, you will be asked for this password. Technically speaking, the protection for printing, editing and copying is just a number of bits of flags. You can turn off these flags without knowing the Owner Password. All software SHOULD (not MUST) ask for Owner Passwords if someone want to change the protection flags. This is why we can unlock PDF files for printing, editing and copying without asking for a password.

Online Solution

There are many free online services that can help you unlock pdf files. For example www.pdfunlock.com. This site will unlock PDF files no larger than 5 MB for free. Online service is very convenient. You don’t need download and install a program on your computer. The operation is very easy. You just need three steps: upload, click unlock, and download. However, all these free services have some limitations. You file size cannot exceed some value, or they will add a watermark to your PDF file. You can only unlock one file at one time. Uploading and downloading need some time if your network is not very fast. If there are some secrets or private information in your PDF file, you would not like to upload it to a website you don’t trust.

Local Solution

If you have a large number of PDF files to unlock, or you would not use online solutions because of privacy or other concern, you need a local software on your computer to help you. This PDF Password Remover (for Windows, for Mac) is the right one. It can not only unlock protection for printing, editing and copying without knowing the password, but also help remove open password if you known the password.

Please follow this three-step guide to fast unlock your PDF files on your computer.

Step 1: Download and Install This PDF Unlocker

Click the Download button to download the right version (Windows or Mac) of PDF Unlocker corresponding to your Operating System. Double click the downloaded file to install it on your computer. Before registering it with a license code, you can only use it for 15 days and it will add a company watermark to the converted files.

Step 2: Add your PDF files to the program.

After launch the program, please drag and drop the PDF files you want to unlock to it. If a lock icon appears on the PDF item, it means the PDF is protected from opening. In this case, double-click the lock to enter the right password to unlock the PDF.

Step 3: One Click to Unlock PDF on Mac and Windows

Click the Start button to unlock PDF in a flash. After all works done, on Windows system, click the Open button to find the output PDFs. On Mac system, click Destination in Prefferenes menu to locate the output files.