How to edit protected PDF files for free

November 9th, 2007 | by HowToGuru |

It can be quite frustrating when you want to copy and edit text from a protected PDF file and you find that you can’t. Normally, you can use the text select tool in Adobe PDF reader to highlight and copy the text in a PDF document. I stumbled upon (no pun intended but feel free to click anyway :-)) this free solution when I wanted to copy some postage rates from a PDF file and found that the protected PDF document didn’t allow me to select any text or numbers. What’s up with that?

pdfedit.jpgAnyway, what I did was to use the Snapshot Tool in Adobe PDF reader (It’s the camera icon), copied the text that I wanted to edit as an image and pasted it into Microsoft Office Document Imaging. Then, here’s the magic part, goto Tools > Recognize text using OCR and hey, presto you have editable text. Simply highlight the OCR’ed text and paste it into any word processor, like Open Office. You can then resave it as a PDF file in Open Office after editing. Easy!

 

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  1. 14 Responses to “How to edit protected PDF files for free”

  2. By grace on Nov 10, 2007 | Reply

    it’s not working. it is disabled. i’m using version 7.

  3. By HowToGuru on Nov 10, 2007 | Reply

    What is disabled?

  4. By Purushotham Reddy on Mar 4, 2008 | Reply

    Hey,thanks a ton guru. it worked like charm. great trick. three cheers to you. keep up the good work.

  5. By 4uton0mous on Mar 17, 2008 | Reply

    It works better if you go to “File/Print/Microsoft Office Document Imaging” from the pdf. Then, you don’t lose any of the editable text in the process. You can also turn around and print a new, unprotected pdf from Microsoft Document Imaging.

  6. By leyya on Apr 2, 2008 | Reply

    would it works if i use the Microsoft Office Document only?? coz i dont have the Microsoft Office Document Immaging in my laptop

  7. By HowToGuru on Apr 10, 2008 | Reply

    Well, you need Microsoft Document Imaging to perform the OCR on the PDF image. Else, you can also use another OCR software from either simpleocr.com or freeocr.net which is free.

  8. By s ojo on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply

    eee

  9. By s ojo on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply

    xx

  10. By Jam on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply

    http://www.pdffiller.com is a good tool if you need to edit pdf files. It helps me a lot.

  11. By s ojo on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply

    i want to prnt it

  12. By ohoboho on Jun 18, 2008 | Reply

    I just don’t see where is the free part

  13. By Hash on Jul 14, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks for the Microsoft Doc Imaging tip!!

  14. By John on Sep 18, 2008 | Reply

    This doesn’t work when the permissions won’t allow copying content. Email me if you know what will…anyone. Thanks!

  15. By moejoe on Oct 12, 2008 | Reply

    ok this really helped a lot, thanks so much! i was getting crazy until now!
    thanks!

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