Editing a "locked" PDF

duragezic · 07-28-2005, 12:29 PM

I have a very large circuits assignment to do from problems in about 10 PDFs. Each PDF however, is a whole chapter. I only need the last 10 pages or so from each PDF that has the problems. Using Acrobat Reader, the PDF is completely locked. I can't even print anything. It is a real pain to have to copy every problem down (over 100). So I, eh, am demoing Adobe Acrobat Pro 7.0. But I can't figure out how to select only a few pages from the original PDF and save it as a new one. Then I can send that PDF to the school to print. Is this possible to do?

wkinney · 07-28-2005, 12:31 PM

Document, Extract Pages...

duragezic · 07-28-2005, 01:45 PM

That option as well as others near it are greyed out. So is the PDF totally locked down and there's nothing I can do about it??

wkinney · 07-28-2005, 01:51 PM

You cant use the Select Text button and highlight the text that you need? Or are there graphics that you need? If not then can't you just copy, paste it into word...

duragezic · 07-28-2005, 02:27 PM

Yes there are diagrams that I need. The select tool will grab voltages, resistance numbers etc but not the circuit diagrams. I can't seem to do anything with the PDF. Crap.

wkinney · 07-28-2005, 02:33 PM

screenshot ? :Q

NuclearNed · 07-28-2005, 02:37 PM

If I recall correctly, the author of a PDF has the ability to lock (i.e. password protect) a PDF from printing and text selection, just like the OP said.

I don't think there is any way to get around this security feature, unless you can find some sort of crack on the net.

WobbleWobble · 07-28-2005, 02:46 PM

NuclearNed is right. It's because of the security features of Acrobat that prevents you from doing any editing/printing. I'm pretty sure there are work arounds for these protections on the net.

duragezic · 07-28-2005, 03:13 PM

Bah. I found a cracker that worked cept with the trial it only does the first 5 pages of the PDF. And I read on another board that anything not Adobe (i.e. Ghostscript) can open and do whatever with a locked .pdf. So I got GS but it seems complicated and not worth the time to have to do to 10 separate PDFs. Someone in my class apparently took screencaps of the problems but it took her about 4 hours. Anything nearing that long I may as well just copy the problems down on a piece of paper.

bersl2 · 07-28-2005, 03:35 PM

You might want to make this known to your teacher that the locked-down nature of the documents is not very conducive to learning, and that if an unprotected version cannot be obtained, a new source for materials should be considered. This kind of problem is the poster child of why DRM sucks.

LASTGUY2GETPS2 · 07-28-2005, 03:44 PM

http://www.verypdf.com/pwdremover/index.htm

I use this.

duragezic · 07-28-2005, 05:22 PM

That PwdRemover would be good except that it has the limitation of only doing the 1st half of the pages in the pdf. The 2nd half is what would have what I need.

edit: We've already asked our prof about the locked pdfs. Basically he didn't really care since he wants us to copy every friggin problem by hand.

Concillian · 07-28-2005, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by: duragezic
edit: We've already asked our prof about the locked pdfs. Basically he didn't really care since he wants us to copy every friggin problem by hand.

Lol, I loved college :disgust: