You are just about to print a PDF document which is urgently in need of. Then, you find that the PDF file is password protected and there is no option to print it.
If you know the password, you can enter it and print the file with ease, but if you forgot the password, printing the secured PDF can be a confusing process.
This guide will elaborate on how to print a secured PDF without password in 8 different ways, each of which will help you a lot.
Cisdem PDF Password Remover
Free Download macOS 10.13 or later 
Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7
There are mainly two types of PDF password, a PDF may come with both passwords or with each one kind of the password.
This password will restrict you from opening a PDF. In this case, you are unable to open the document and view its content.
This password will restrict how you can utilize the PDF file.The owner can set restrictions on printing, editing, copying, etc. That is, you can open and view the PDF, but if you try to copy content, print and edit the PDF file, you will fail to do so.
From the above we can easily know that, the reason we can't print a PDF is that the PDF is protected with permission password and restricts access to print.
Scenario 1: You know the password.
If you know the password, you can easily print the protected PDF with most of free PDF readers. Some PDF readers (like Foxit PDF Reader) can automatically detect the restrictions applied to PDF once a protected PDF has been imported into the program. You just need to enter the correct password to unlock the secured PDF and then print it easily.
While some PDF viewers (like Preview on Mac) will prompt you to enter the password when you choose the Print feature. Likewise, you should type the right password to activate the Print function.
Note: This method does not work with the browsers such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. They won’t pop up to ask people to enter a password to make the printing function workable.
Scenario 2: You don’t know the password.
If you don’t know the password, the only way is to remove the print restriction from the secured PDF file in order to print it.
Rest assured that it is easy to print a protected PDF without password and many free methods are available. Here we will show you each method with detailed steps and screenshots.
If you want the quality of your password protected PDF documents to be intact after the restrictions are removed, then you are recommended to choose a dedicated PDF password remover developed by Cisdem.
This PDF password remover software can remove both open password and permission password from PDF in a breeze. It can easily identify the PDF password type and unlock all of protected PDF files even without entering the password. Better still, it supports batch processing, greatly improving users’ work efficiency.
Free Download macOS 10.13 or later Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7 
(Optional) If there is a lock icon appearing with your PDF, it indicates that your PDF is user password protected from opening and you should remove it. Click the red lock icon on the right, either enter the user password if you know or directly decrypt the password if you forgot it. Remember to tweak the settings as it guides to cut the time for decryption.
Print your secured PDF files.
If you only have 1 or 2 secured PDFs to be printed and your PDFs are not containing any private or sensitive content. You can also use online sites to remove the PDF printing restriction.
Depending on the PDF password type, there are 3 different online ways to print a locked PDF without password.
| Google Drive | Smallpdf | Lostmypass | |
|---|---|---|---|
| User Password | Require PW | Require PW | Recover a weak PW |
| Owner Password | Unlock all PW | Unlock simple PW | Unlock simple PW |
| Disadvantage | Distorted formatting and missing images in printed PDFs; crash frequently | Download limited PDFs per day | Max file size: 100 MB |
If you have stored your files in Google Drive or have a Google account, you can print the secured PDF with Google services as well.
It won’t ask you to enter the print password, you just need to open the file with Google Docs and hit the print icon. Even if you want to edit the PDF file before printing, it is possible and simple.
Disadvantage:
Google Docs will convert the protected PDF into Word. In this process, they may change the original layout and formatting, and the images contained in PDF will sometimes fail to load. Still, when testing, we found that the imported PDF files were not always successfully opened with Google Docs. It was crashing.
There are many online PDF password removers that can remove the password from a PDF file and create a new non-protected PDF.
Smallpdf is one among them. However, Smallpdf can only unlock a PDF that is protected with permission password, to decrypt PDF for opening, you have to enter the correct password.
Disadvantage:
Smallpdf provides only basic functionality for free and there is no batch unlocking support. Besides, it has limits on file numbers per day. Most importantly, it can only remove short and simple passwords containing only numbers. If your password is made up of characters and numbers, this unlock tool will fail to remove it and prompt you to enter the password.
Lostmypass is an online site that helps remove owner password and recover user password. If your PDF is secured with an owner password, the site will unlock and remove it quickly. Or if your PDF is protected from opening, it will show you the recovered password after cracking, you can use this password to unlock the file for printing.
The recovery process may succeed or fail basing on the complexity of the original password, and it will take a long time.
Disadvantage:
In the recovery process, it may show that your password is weak but still failed to decrypt and guides you to buy its strong password recovery. In addition, you can upload a PDF file with max 100MB for free unlocking.
For user password, select “I DON’T KNOW THE PASSWORD...” to recover the password and download the unlocked PDF.
Apart from utilizing PDF password removers to remove print restriction from PDF files, converting a secured PDF into a Word is also a workable way. Better than other methods, you can modify the content and make adjustments before printing the converted Word file.
As its name suggests, Cisdem PDF Converter OCR is a dedicated PDF converter that helps users perform conversions between PDF and various other file formats. It supports importing all types of PDF files, including normal PDF, scanned PDF and protected PDF. To boost your work efficiency, bulk conversion is allowed in this program.
Disadvantage:
This converter will auto delete the permission password applied to the PDF file, but it requires you to type the correct password if an open password is set.
We all know that Microsoft Word is a Word processor developed by Microsoft. It has gone through many versions since 1980, until the 2013 version and later, MS Word has added a new feature that can open a PDF document in the program directly by turning it into Word document.
Disadvantage:
MS Word can convert a protected PDF to Word only if the PDF is restricted to printing, not editing or opening. Additionally, the PDF containing lots of graphics can cause formatting loss after conversion. And if a PDF file exceeds the maximal page size supported by Word, the program will have trouble opening it.
As noted in the beginning, browsers including Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge are not capable of printing a password protected PDF, no matter whether you know the password. Because their built-in Print button will be greyed out once you import a secured PDF, you can’t even click on it, let alone enter the password or remove the restriction to print the file. Helpfully! We did succeed in printing a locked PDF without password using Firefox browser.
It seems a good option to print a secured PDF by taking screenshots of the content. This method works efficiently as long as you can open and view the protected PDF file.
One thing to note is that, it requires capturing the PDF content as an image, which will degrade the quality.
1. On Mac, you can press and hold Shift, Command, and 4 together, then it will show a crosshair. Drag the crosshair to capture the area of PDF content.
2. On Windows, you can tap the Windows key + Shift + S, then your screen will flash and a small Snipping Tool menu will appear at the top of the screen, you can then draw a box the define which area you want to capture.
If you have unlocked the PDF for printing, but the secured PDF still cannot print, there are 3 possible reasons for this:
Hardware issues: Malfunction of your device or printer.
Fix: Restart the device, re-plug the printer or print on another device.
Software errors: Outdated printing driver or PDF apps, set up the printer improperly.
Fix: Update the printing drive and software to the latest version, and leave the defaulted settings unchanged.
PDF problems: Damaged or corrupted PDFs.
Fix: Repair PDF online or use a dedicated PDF recovery program.
You can refer to this article and follow the guide to figure out why your secured PDF can’t print: reasons why can't print PDF.
Although aforementioned methods all make it possible to print a protected PDF, for the reason of information safety and work efficiency, a desktop PDF Password Remover will be a better choice to print your secured PDFs. It even helps you print a user-password protected PDF without password.
Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7 Free Download macOS 10.13 or later
Carolyn has always been passionate about reading and writing, so she joined Cisdem as an editor as soon as she graduated from university. She focuses on writing how-to articles about PDF editing and conversion.
David B. Garner
Thank you for your sharing! I printed my PDF successfully, without entering any password!
Judy
That is the reason why i cannot print the PDF! I followed your guide and it did worked, I got a new unsecured PDF, but everything of the PDF looks as the same as the original.