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October 21

Removing PDF passwords

I have some PDF files containing scans of out-of-copyright woks, but they are password protected. I have the passwords.

What's the best way to remove the passwords?

I use Windows 10 (I also have use of a Windows 11 machine), and do not wish to buy software for this task.

I have tried print-to-PDF, which works, but gives sub-optimal quality. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:12, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

With PDFtk: pdftk in.pdf input_pw <password> output out.pdf -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 13:55, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Alternately use the qpdf package (you can download it from this link) with a command-line like qpdf --decrypt --password=yoursecretpassword inputfilename.pdf outputfilename.pdf . – b_jonas 05:20, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright.
Sleigh (talk) 18:49, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's a fair cop. I'll come quietly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:08, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keyboard issue

On Windows 10, on various web sites accessed through a chrome browser, including stackexchange and facebook and others, my keyboard has begun behaving strangely: First it's functioning normally and then for about 20 minutes if I press the "g" key I get "R" or some other letter, and pressing the "4" key I get "z" etc., and I thought this might be a hardware problem. But then I found that whenever this problem happens, if I just enter a few characters into R, version 4.2.2, the keyboard starts functioning normally again on chrome. So this seems like a software issue. Does that suggest to anyone what's going on and what can be done about it? Michael Hardy (talk) 23:05, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried power cycling? --Lambiam 23:02, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambian: If you mean turning the machine off and starting it again, I've done that probably a few dozen times since this problem started, and it still persists. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:09, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And this is only when using Chrome browser, right? I would try a different browser for a while, to try to narrow down the problem. It could be with the keyboard. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:51, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

When the keyboard starts misbehaving, do you get the wrong output for most digit and letter keys, or just a few of them (just "g" and "4" for example)? If the former, then I suspect that you've accidentally switched to a different keyboard layout.

Note that Windows has a setting (very useful IMO) that lets you switch between the configured keyboard layouts independently in different windows, because eg. I may be typing an email with the Hungarian layout in my email program but typing formulas with the US-English layout in R. That may explain why typing into R fixes the issue.

Here is how to diagnose this. Go to Settings (gear icon in Start menu) -> Time & Language -> Language -> Keyboard -> Language bar options -> Language Bar tab and set Language Bar to Docked in the taskbar. This should make a short language code text appear close to the clock in your taskbar. When your keyboard is working properly, and later when it's typing the wrong thing, click on that language code area to open the list of keyboard layouts, and see which keyboard layout is highlighted showing that it's currently active. Make sure that your Chrome browser window is still active because, as mentioned above, a different layout may be selected in different windows. Do not just read the short language code on the taskbar, because that can be identical between different keyboard layouts, you must open the list from it.

If it turns out that you're changing keyboard layouts by accident, first check Settings (gear icon in Start menu) -> Time & Language -> Language -> Keyboard -> Input language hot keys -> Advanced Key Settings tab to see what shortcut is enabled for switching between keyboard layouts. Usually this shortcut will be left-alt+shift or left-shift+right-shift. Note that in addition to the shortcuts shown there, windows+space switches between layouts. Some programs, such as MS Office, may also change keyboard layouts automatically depending on what language of text it believes you are editing (there's a setting for this so it need not always be the case). Perhaps Chrome does this too depending on the language of the webpage.

– b_jonas 13:29, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]