- Sometimes you need to password protect a PDF to hide it from prying eyes. This video shows you how to do it using Preview, an.
- By protecting your PDF document with password, you can prevent unauthorized tampering and leakage of information when circulating it among different people. We recommend iSkysoft PDF Editor 6 Professional for Mac to do the job.
- One of the things it can do is export a document as password protected PDF. To do this, open the PDF in Preview first, go to File and either select Export or Export as PDF.
- Click Save to enable a password protection to a PDF file. Done, you have secured a PDF file using your Mac. Summary – Protecting a PDF file is important for some confidential content. You can easily password protect a PDF file with inbuilt tools in Windows PC and a Mac.
Feb 16,2019 • Filed to: PDF Security
How To Password Protect a PDF File in Adobe Reader. Step 01: First download and install the latest version of Adobe Reader for MAC or Windows. Step 02: Now to make your PDF password protected in Adobe Reader, open the PDF file that you want to secure. You can either browse and open the file from your system or can drag and drop it from your system.
Files such as PDFs are prevalent in our day-to-day lives as we attempt to transfer content across the digital sphere. The importance of protecting a PDF file with a password not only ensures sensitive documents are not accessed by the wrong parties but it also prevents unwanted edits from others. Other reasons to password protect your PDFs include protecting your copyright content and intellectual property. In this article, I will teach you how to use password protect PDF with PDFelement Pro.
Part 1. The Best Tool to Password PDF
PDFelement Pro - The Best PDF Protection Tool
By protecting your PDF document with password, you can prevent unauthorized tampering and leakage of information when circulating it among different people. We recommend PDFelement Pro to do the job. Not only can it help with general editing of PDFs, you can also convert PDFs to Word with a simple click. From combining PDFs to filling out forms and annotating PDFs, you can password protect your PDFs and edit images within the PDFs. It is a complete package to help you deal with any PDF challenge.
Why Choose This PDF editor:
- Edit PDF texts, graphics, images, links, watermarks with ease
- Convert PDF to images, Word, Excel, PPT, EPUB and more formats.
- Easy to protect PDF files through password.
- Easily mark up and annotate PDF files with multiple markup tools.
- Add watermark, signature and password to PDF.
How to Add Password to PDF on Mac
Here is a step by step guide for adding pdf password with PDFelement Pro.
Step 1. Load the PDF You Want to Protect
Download PDFelement Pro and install it on your system. Once you open the program, you will be given a choice to import PDF. Under Create, select 'From File'. This enables you to open a PDF document. Or you can also clcik 'Open File' to load your document. Once the document is open, all the available features will be displayed.
Step 2. Access the Security Option
Under the 'Protect' tab, you can find the 'Protect' tab, and click on the 'Password' button to select the “Encrypt with Password” option.
Step 3. Set Password for Your PDF
In the 'Security Settings' window, you can either protect your PDF from opening or you can allow or block other permissions such as printing or copying.
Then enter your password. Once you select 'OK', the program will create a password protected PDF.
Part 2. Tips for Making PDF Password Safer
Passwords defend you from cyber criminals from accessing your content. It is imperative to pick very powerful passwords for different accounts and it is suggested that they are updated regularly to remove any uncertainty. Here are some top tips:
- When you are creating a password, ensure it is long and strong, with at least eight characters and a mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. The harder the password, the harder it is for criminals to decrypt.
- Never share your password with others, not even your best buddies.
- Make your password unique to your life and not something that is easily guessed. Use very long phrases that are special to you and will be memorable.
- Use and have different passwords for each of your online accounts. This removes the uncertainty in case one account is breached.
- Write down your password and conspicuously hide it somewhere away from your computer or where other can find it. You can even store it within a document that looks like it means nothing to you.
- Change your password regularly. It is suggested that you change your passwords several times a year or at least twice.
- Other ways include creating multi-factor authentication such as finger scans, facial recognition or using phone verification.
The ability to password protect PDF files is a great way to keep personal information safe from prying eyes, especially when you want to control who is and who isn’t allowed to see the contents of a file.
But on the contrary, what do you do if you want to remove password protection from a PDF file on your Mac?
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to convert a password-protected PDF file to a basic PDF file that can be opened by anyone.
Why to remove password protection from a PDF file
Although from almost every security standpoint it seems counterproductive to remove a password from a protected PDF file that was clearly protected for a reason in the first place, the content of the PDF file may not always have to remain a secret forever, and removing the password can make accessing the file faster and easier for future needs.
One example I can think of is when something is under embargo, or is supposed to be kept from a specific group of people for only a certain period of time, and when it’s finally common knowledge, security for the file is no longer going to be needed.
Such an example might include blueprints for a work project, or something that is meant to be kept a secret for a limited amount of time, and can then be publicized after the due date passes.
Whatever the case, knowing how to remove a password from a password-protected PDF file is a good skill to know, whether you’ll be using it in the future or not.
How to remove a password from a PDF file
If you’ve decided to remove a password from an existing password-protected PDF file,then you’ll need to at least know the password to the file. Unfortunately, breaking into encrypted PDF files is not easy unless you know the password for the file, but if you do, then it’s easy to unencrypt.
To un-encrypt a PDF file, follow these steps:
1) Locate the encrypted PDF file you want to unencrypt, and open it in Preview on your Mac.
2) Preview will prompt you to enter the password to open the file, so enter your password:
3) Once you’re in the file, go to File > Export from the Menu Bar.
4) Make sure to rename the file, then make sure the Encrypt option is unchecked. When you’re happy with the name and have unchecked Encrypt, you can click the blue Save button.
5) The new PDF file that you’ve created is an exact copy of the PDF file you were just in, but it’s no longer a password-protected PDF file. Anyone can open this file if you send it to them without a password:
And now you’re ready to unencrypt any password-protected PDF file you know the password to!
Password Protect Adobe Pdf
Take note that the newly-created unencrypted PDF file doesn’t have an icon with a lock on it like an encrypted PDF file does, but instead shows a preview of the PDF file in the app icon itself.
Can You Password Protect With Adobe Reader
Wrapping up
If you’ve ever wanted to remove a password from an encrypted PDF file you’ve made, then it’s pretty simple to do as you’ve just learned.
On the other hand, please do keep in mind you still need to know the initial password to do this, so this method doesn’t work if you don’t belong in the PDF file to begin with.
Also read: Convert PDF files to Word files in iOS
Do you use encrypted PDF files often? Do you ever need to unencrypt them? Share in the comments!