pypdf2: Encrypting and decrypting files

Hi Pythonistas!

While working with python another important thing protecting pdf will be a password. Some of the critical PDF files are encrypted using a password. Today we will learn how to encrypt and decrypt  PDF files. Let us dive into the code

Encrypting File

from PyPDF2 import PdfReader, PdfWriter

reader = PdfReader("sample.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()

for page in reader.pages:
    writer.add_page(page)

writer.encrypt("password")

with open("encrypted-pdf.pdf", "wb") as f:
    writer.write(f)

writer.encrypt("password") This will encrypt the file with password “password”.  If you try to open the file a password prompt will be shown. If you specify the password then only the content of this file is shown.

Decrypting file

from PyPDF2 import PdfReader, PdfWriter

reader = PdfReader("encrypted-pdf.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()

if reader.is_encrypted:
    reader.decrypt("password")

for page in reader.pages:
    writer.add_page(page)

with open("decrypted-pdf.pdf", "wb") as f:
    writer.write(f)

reader.is_encrypted - check whether the file is encrypted, If file encrypted then a True is returned

reader.decrypt("password") - Decrypt the file using the proper password, If wrong password error is given it will raise an PyPDF2.errors.FileNotDecryptedError exception.

I hope you have learned something from this post. Please share your valuable suggestion with afsal@parseltongue.co.in