Copy text from protected PDF's

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TimTDP

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Invoices I receive are often protected so I can't copy and paste banking details into my banking app
I have to write them down on paper and manually enter them into the banking app. A time consuming task, leading to errors
How can I resolve this?

Thanks in advance
 
TimTDP said:
Invoices I receive are often protected so I can't copy and paste banking details into my banking app
I have to write them down on paper and manually enter them into the banking app. A time consuming task, leading to errors
How can I resolve this?

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

I am assuming you only want to do it on a phone? (because of the use of the word app)
 
TimTDP said:
Invoices I receive are often protected so I can't copy and paste banking details into my banking app
I have to write them down on paper and manually enter them into the banking app. A time consuming task, leading to errors
How can I resolve this?

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
The way I get rid of protection and password on a pdf is to open the file, click on print and choose the printer option "Microsoft print to pdf" save to a separate folder or not. The pdf created thus will not be password protected and you can copy the text.
 
Nemesys said:
The way I get rid of protection and password on a pdf is to open the file, click on print and choose the printer option "Microsoft print to pdf" save to a separate folder or not. The pdf created thus will not be password protected and you can copy the text.
Click to expand...

Unless they blocked printing... true story.
 
supersunbird said:
Unless they blocked printing... true story.
Click to expand...
This protecting all and sundry pdf's with a password is getting ridicules. I received a pdf file recently with the message that the file is password protected and that I should use my surname as password to unlock it and just in case I forgot how to spell my surname they included it in brackets in the note.

The document is password protected. Please enter your surname (XXXX) as the password.

Edited to remove my surname.
 
On macOS/iOS you can convert it to a jpg, or any other image format, and copy the text that way. Surely there's an equivalent on Windows?
 
Microsoft PowerToys has a feature called Text Extractor that lets you snip anything on your screen and attempt to convert it to text.

I'm paranoid of all OCR tools though, and I wouldn't trust them for bank account numbers.

apps.microsoft.com

Get Microsoft PowerToys from the Microsoft Store

Microsoft PowerToys is a set of utilities for power users to tune and streamline their Windows 10 and 11 experience for greater productivity.
apps.microsoft.com apps.microsoft.com
 
Google remove PDF protection. There are many online services where you upload the document, it removes all protection instantaneously and you download the document again. No matter if a bank protected it with whatever software. You can also buy or download software to remove protection from any PDF document.

PDFs are the most insecure documents where you can remove any form of protection in a second with no problem.
 
Usually the Full version of Adobe Acrobat allows you to bypass most of these security features, but you have to buy the full version for the annual fee price.
Fortunately I already own that for business reasons.
But as someone else pointed out above there are many online websites where you can also remove these security features.
Just Google for them.
 
Screenshot and copy paste the details from the screenshot image.

* Edit: Seems to be an Apple thing.
 
I hate that especially when the protected PDF includes banking details. You then have to manually retype. I've purchased Adobe Acrobat Pro before but that version no longer works with the latest Windows.
 
OCR - Image Reader browser extension will do on the fly OCR of any text within a browser window and allow you to copy and paste.

chrome.google.com

OCR - Image Reader - Chrome Web Store

A powerful optical character recognition (OCR) extension to capture and convert images to text
chrome.google.com chrome.google.com

OCR Image Reader

is designed to simplify optical character recognition (OCR) processing within your browser. After installation, the extension adds a new button to the toolbar area of your browser. When you press this button, the current window switches to the selection mode, allowing you to select a region on...
webextension.org webextension.org
 
I haven't tried it on a PDF, but Edge allows you to select text that websites block from being selected. Highlight the text, click the three dots, select copy.
 
Blah, Blah, Blah... Elcomsoft Advanced PDF Password Recovery. It unencrypts secured PDF in seconds.
One of my favourite utilities. it never fails.
 
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