First of all, this is not to bypass a PDF file that requires a password to open. Rather, it’s for those who need to freely work on a PDF document without any restrictions for legitimate reasons such as adding or removing certain pages, reducing some of the content, etc.

QPDF is an open-source tool that performs content-preserving transformations on PDF files with features like linearization, encryption, splitting and merging files. It’s basically a command-line tool that works directly with the structure of PDF files.

Setting it up is fairly easy. Heading over to its releases page where you can download a version that works with your environment. I like portable tools and mostly work on a Windows system so a portable Windows version is what I am after.

To remove all restrictions set on a PDF file, simply use the –decrypt option.

qpdf --decrypt source_file new_file

If you need to work on a previously signed/encrypted file, use the combination of the –decrypt option and –remove-restriction.