copy and pasting protected pdf

Once in a while, I get a pdf that I am unable to copy and paste to a document, since they protect it.

Now I see (from frwr_news 2010-08-02) there's a site that can convert pdf to word format, called pdftoword. I got a feeling it also might not work with protected documents, but I think I'll try it next time.

The creator of the website, Nitro PDF Software, also has some other neat-sounding free utilities. Haven't tried them out yet though to see how good they are.

[9/12/10] OK trying it with the EMC Annual letter which I can't copy and paste. Not getting anything via email.

Got nothing back to my hawaiiantel account, so submitted with my gmail account. Got this back. "The file you submitted is copy protected and could not be accessed." I.e. no use to me. So much for Nitro.

Went back to Simpo and it worked OK in this simple case.

***

3/23/12 - had the same problem with the Howard Marks memos. They were protected so I couldn't copy and paste in the usual way. However I found this website called pdfunlock that can read the protected document and spit back it as unprotected. I must say it worked quite well in this case.

[12/17/15 - you can tell they're protected because it says "secured" at the top of Adobe Reader.]

[6/10/15] In the same vein, this pdf utility called PDF Shaper (via frwr-news) looks like it could be handy.  Among its functions are to extract text, encrypt and decrypt pdfs.  Maybe I'll try it the next time.

What I have been doing lately is to upload to google drive then copy and paste from the uploaded file.  It doesn't work all the time and you still have to format out the hard carriage returns.  But it's better than typing.  I forgot all about pdfunlock.

[4/29/17]  Couldn't copy and paste Spetrino's newsletter The Dividend Machine.  Adobe reader it's secure.  Tried pdfunlock.  Says it's not protected.  Wound up having to upload the document to google docs and copy and paste from there.  It doesn't copy and paste very well with hard breaks for each line and a blank line between each line.  But it's better than having to type the whole thing.