Can You Edit and Annotate a Protected PDF?
Why does my PDF not let me highlight text? This is because it is password-protected. Setting a password for PDF files is a simple and effective way to enhance security, restrict access, and maintain control over documents. This is especially important when sharing files that should not be modified or viewed by everyone. However, it does not mean you can't highlight text in a PDF.
With SwifDoo PDF, a professional PDF editor that supports password removal and annotations, you can convert a password-protected PDF to a normal PDF and highlight text as usual. Even if you don't know the password, SwifDoo PDF can help you bypass restrictions, allowing you to edit files freely.
Click the button below to get SwifDoo PDF and start highlighting a protected PDF! If you would like to know the specific steps, please continue reading.
Way 1. Remove Password and Highlight Protected PDF
SwifDoo PDF can help you add and remove passwords. As long as you know the correct password, you can easily unlock a PDF for editing. SwifDoo PDF's workflow is very intuitive and requires almost no learning curve. You can easily find the tools you need at the top of the software.
Check to learn how to highlight a protected PDF using SwifDoo PDF.
Step 1. Remove Permission Password
When you want to highlight a password-protected PDF, you should first remove the password to unlock the editing restrictions.
1. Download, install, and launch SwifDoo PDF.
2. Click Open to browse your computer and select the protected PDF document.
3. Go to Protect and choose Decryption. Select “Yes, I have a permission password”, and click Next.
4. Now, enter the correct password and click Continue.
5. Uncheck Permission Password and click Apply. In this way, the protected PDF will become a normal PDF.
Step 2. Highlight PDF
Once the editing permission has been removed, you can use the PDF annotation tool to highlight text, an image, or any area.
1. In SwifDoo PDF, go to the page you want to highlight. Click Annotate and choose Highlight. If you want to highlight an area in a PDF, please select the "Area Highlight" option.
2. Change the highlight color as needed.
3. Then, drag the cursor to highlight the text.
4. When done, click the Save button to save the changes.
Way 2. Highlight Protected PDF Without a Password
What if you do not know the password? Don’t worry. SwifDoo PDF can help you bypass the permission in one click. Next, you can highlight the PDF as usual. Read on to learn how to highlight a password-protected PDF easily.
1. Open the protected PDF in SwifDoo PDF. Click Protect and select Decryption.
2. Then, select “No, I don’t have a permission password” and click Next.
3. Click Remove and select a location to save the new version.
4. SwifDoo PDF will open the non-protected PDF in a new tab. Now, you can go to Annotate and select the Highlight tool to highlight any content.
Troubeshout: Can’t Highlight Text After Removing Password
You have removed the security restrictions, but you are still unable to select and highlight text. Why is this? This may be because the PDF document is a scanned document or an image-based file. In this case, what you see is only part of the image, not the actual characters. To select text in a protected PDF, you should apply OCR.
The OCR technology can analyze and recognize text in PDF. That’s to say, make the PDF selectable and editable. The steps are as follows.
1. Open the PDF in SwifDoo PDF. Go to Home and choose OCR.
2. Confirm the language and adjust other settings. Click Apply to make it.
3. Then, SwifDoo PDF will open the editable PDF in a new tab. Click Highlight and move the cursor to highlight the text.
Conclusion
That’s all about how to highlight a protected PDF. You can only annotate a protected PDF file after it has been unlocked or editing has been enabled. It's better to ask the author for the password and then use SwifDoo PDF to remove the permission. If the file is scanned as an image, please use OCR to make it editable. Anyway, please ensure that you have the right to modify the file.