Got PDF Blues? Get PDF Key Pro And Smile.

Mac OS X lets you save documents as PDFs. These files work well on Windows PCs and you’re sure to receive a PDF from others from time to time.

Sometimes the PDFs are locked, password protected for editing or printing. PDF Key Pro ends the PDF frustration.

It’s not that PDFs are such a big secret or difficult to manage. It’s just that we don’t always create every PDF we have. Some PDF documents come to us with password protection; they’re locked up tight.

PDF Key Pro is a nifty Mac OS X application that, well, uh, does what it says—it opens locked PDF documents (editing and printing password protected).

Just as Microsoft Word documents and Excel documents seem to rule the business world, HTML/CSS rules web pages (except with Microsoft), PDFs are the documents we use when we want to save something, send something.

Brochures come in PDFs these days. White papers are available in PDFs. Manuals show up as PDFs. PDFs are everywhere. Thank you, Adobe.

While PDFs are usually great for basic viewing, they can also be used to search for key phrases and words, and, importantly, they can be locked up. A password is required to open some PDFs before viewing or printing.

What PDF Key Pro does is make life easier for those who forget their passwords regularly (can you say, “Bambi?”) or receive a locked PDF (printing and editing).

PDF Key Pro is a straightforward, easy-to-use Mac utility that unlocks and decrypts password-protected PDF editing and printing documents. As the developer says, “It removes editing and printing passwords if these have been forgotten.”

If you have Mac OS X Tiger then you also have Automator. PDF Key Pro comes with an Automator Action and handles batch processing so you can do a stack of PDF documents without sitting around doing them one at a time.

It’s simple to use. Simple drag one or more PDFs, or an entire folder of PDFs, onto the PDF Key Pro icon. What it does is read the PDF file, checks whether it has printing or editing passwords, and then creates a duplicate, a replica of the original PDF, but without the passwords.

If the PDF has a ‘viewing password’ PDF Key Pro does the same thing; it creates an exact replica without any password, though you’ll have to provide a new one for the replicated document.

This is a very handy utility for a small office, large office, school, or anyone who goes through a bunch of PDF documents each year.

Click Here for the PDF Key features page and download link. I’ve never fully understood how some Mac applications are priced. I’ve seen a few that were highly valuable but priced at an odd number like $8, $12, or, as with PDF Key Pro, at $16.75.

Regardless, that’s a small price to pay to be able to open that which is no longer openable.

Bambi Hambi
I live with PDFs and always seem to get them from businesses who locked it and forgot the password. They’re usually surprised when I tell them I got it opened anyway because I use a Mac.

Carol Mary Miller
I’ve done work for schools where there’s a mix of Macs and Windows PCs. It’s always the Mac teachers who have neat utilities like that.