In these days of unbridled data theft and privacy attacks, the dictum of keeping your files secured isn’t exactly a revelation. Of the many ways that people are advised to keep their files safe, encryption almost always makes it the top suggestions. In fact, if you’ve important, confidential files with you, it’s almost mandatory to keep your data encrypted.
If some of these file are work related, they’ll most likely be in a PDF form. But when you want to access your PDF files, you first need to decrypt them. In this article, we cover the different ways you can remove the password from your PDF files. Let’s get started.
How to remove password from PDF files
Some PDF files come with encryption enabled. Although a good practice in itself from a security point of view, entering a password again and again gets a little cumbersome after a while.
So it’s a helpful to have a few methods at your disposal that can help you in cases like this.
Use Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is the de facto app that deal with all things PDFs. Deigned by Adobe in the early 90s, the app has been in business even now. To remove your password from the PDF file, launch the file with Adobe Acrobat first. Adobe Acrobat is not free, you can learn more from Adobe.
After you’ve launched the files, follow the steps below:
- Head to Tools > Encrypt › Remove Security.
- If the PDF file has a Document Open password, then click on OK to remove it.
- If the PDF has a permission password, enter the correct password, and click on OK.
Follow the above steps, and you’ll have with you an PDF file free from password in no time.
Use the print method from browser
An alternate workaround, in case the above method fails for some reason, is to use the print option that’s available in most browsers. The basic approach is to go about printing your file as you normally would, but instead save the files midway. Here’s how.
In this case, we’ll be using Chrome; you can choose any other browser. Now first launch the PDF file with the browser. Then right-click on your PDF file and select Print…
In the new dialog box, select Save to store your new files as PDF. In most cases, the new PDF file will be created without a password.
Removing passwords from PDF files
That’s it, folks. Follow the above methods, and you’ll be able to get rid of your PDF passwords without too many hassles. Although we concur it’s a good practice in itself, and is a vital step in improving your Windows security, entering a password every time you open a file can get burdensome pretty fast.
