How to decrypt a PDF File and Disable its Password in Python

What do you say we skip the hot mess that is PDF decryption and hand out the results instead? It’s not as though the hand-written approach is going to have any extra benefits, besides maybe a nice headache. That said, let me show you how to use an API that’s capable of performing the decryption in our stead.

With pip install, our client can be installed as shown here:

pip install cloudmersive-convert-api-client

And below we have the layout for our function call for edit_pdf_decrypt.

from __future__ import print_function
import time
import cloudmersive_convert_api_client
from cloudmersive_convert_api_client.rest import ApiException
from pprint import pprint
# Configure API key authorization: Apikey
configuration = cloudmersive_convert_api_client.Configuration()
configuration.api_key['Apikey'] = 'YOUR_API_KEY'
# Uncomment below to setup prefix (e.g. Bearer) for API key, if needed
# configuration.api_key_prefix['Apikey'] = 'Bearer'
# create an instance of the API class
api_instance = cloudmersive_convert_api_client.EditPdfApi(cloudmersive_convert_api_client.ApiClient(configuration))
password = 'password_example' # str | Valid password for the PDF file
input_file = '/path/to/file' # file | Input file to perform the operation on.
try:
# Decrypt and password-protect a PDF
api_response = api_instance.edit_pdf_decrypt(password, input_file)
pprint(api_response)
except ApiException as e:
print("Exception when calling EditPdfApi->edit_pdf_decrypt: %s\n" % e)

Now the API just needs the PDF’s password and the file itself. The decryption will be handled on the API’s end and you can just enjoy the results.