You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Numerous PDF password prompts

I get this error on many, many PDFs when opening in iOS: “Without the owner password, you do not have permission to save this document.” I’ve tried opening in Acrobat, which says the document is read-only.


These aren’t password protected documents created by an individual involved in my transactions. They’re downloaded from public webpages. They’re unfilled forms. They’re sent to me by people on a PC expecting me to be able to open them. Everyone in the transaction NOT on iOS is utterly bewildered, and they tell me they can open and fill it without an issue.


Forum searches say the publisher will need to remove the protection, but this is happening with forms promulgated by giant banks and the State of Texas, so that’s not happening. Sure, I can screenshot and manually fill the forms, but I shouldn’t have to (and all the more reason this “password protection” is hogwash; it doesn’t protect anything, it just adds unnecessary steps).


Anyway. I wish someone somewhere would figure this out. A universal password, a way to save as editable, a way to fill and print without saving, *anything* but this endless waste of time.


iPad Pro 11-inch Wi-Fi, Cellular

Posted on Oct 11, 2022 4:18 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 12, 2022 5:01 AM

You can’t see in the screenshot, but this form has Clear and Print buttons on it, which tells me that it was intended to be for direct form entry. It was emailed to me by an employee of Schwab and described as a fillable form. I can’t tell you how many innumerable times over the years this has happened to me, and I am the only person in the transaction having trouble (because I’m on a mac). It seems obvious to me this is an Apple issue, or rather, an issue with how Apple products are reading PDFs created in other OSes. The creators of the PDF don’t seem to have set a password, though, which makes me wonder if there’s some default password I can enter that will unlock these PDFs.


I’ll try to use the Markup feature. The text entry is so cumbersome that I usually convert the PDFs to image files, then use the Acrobat app to create a new PDF and edit that.

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 12, 2022 5:01 AM in response to LotusPilot

You can’t see in the screenshot, but this form has Clear and Print buttons on it, which tells me that it was intended to be for direct form entry. It was emailed to me by an employee of Schwab and described as a fillable form. I can’t tell you how many innumerable times over the years this has happened to me, and I am the only person in the transaction having trouble (because I’m on a mac). It seems obvious to me this is an Apple issue, or rather, an issue with how Apple products are reading PDFs created in other OSes. The creators of the PDF don’t seem to have set a password, though, which makes me wonder if there’s some default password I can enter that will unlock these PDFs.


I’ll try to use the Markup feature. The text entry is so cumbersome that I usually convert the PDFs to image files, then use the Acrobat app to create a new PDF and edit that.

Oct 12, 2022 4:32 AM in response to CLWaltrip

While some PDF forms are designed to allow direct field-entry, not all do. If you see an unexpected password challenge, you have encountered a document that is not designed for direct form-entry.


While you may be unable to use direct form-entry with the downloaded PDF file, when using the iPad’s native PDF viewer, you should be able to use iOS/iPadOS markup:

Use Markup on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Numerous PDF password prompts

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.