Request: Annotate encrypted PDFs

[NGr 1]

Many people have been waiting for this for a long time, and a plethora of competitor products provide this option. The fact that other apps offer it must mean that there are no legal issues with this feature, so why not just add it?

Let's be clear, that right now any annotation feature that doesn't work with encrypted PDFs is semi useless.

[gazumped 11,666]

Hi.  It's already possible to encrypt and decrypt PDF files with a (usually paid-for) PDF editor,  annotate the content and re-encrypt back into an Evernote attachment.  Don't see the incentive for Evernote to allocate resources into reinventing that particular wheel.

[NGr 1]

I deal with dozens of PDFs a day, most of them encrypted. Decrypting and re-encrypting every single one of them would be a lot of lost time.

 

Besides, I don't get your reply, at all. Every single thing Evernote does already exists with other software, but Evernote represents a simple, intuitive interface for aggregating it all. Isn't that the point? To save time and make working more efficient?

 

When competitors offer this feature and Evernote doesn't, it seems to me like it's just willing ignorance of a certain portion of users, letting them leave to the competitor.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

I deal with dozens of PDFs a day, most of them encrypted. Decrypting and re-encrypting every single one of them would be a lot of lost time.

 

Until/IF Evernote adds the feature you are requesting, you might try this:

 

Use a 3rd party app to encrypt, and to open the encrypted PDF attached to an Evernote Note to make annotations.

I do this all the time and it works very well, very fast.

 

Decrypting a PDF is very fast, you just enter the passcode when you open the PDF.

I find 3rd party PDF tools, like Adobe Acrobat XI, to be much better at annotations than Evernote, so I don't ever use Evernote annotations.

[NGr 1]

There's no passcode, it's just PDFs that are protected. And yes, I use a different software to annotate them as Evernote doesn't, for some odd reason.

[SusanHilton 2]

I would like to write on my pdf's in Evernote. Of course the ones I need are encrypted and it asks for a password to unencrypt it and I didn't create the pdf so I don't have the password. I work on a Mac.  Suggestions? What other options/apps/help is out there?

 

[DTLow 5,736]

24 minutes ago, SusanHilton said:

I would like to write on my pdf's in Evernote. Of course the ones I need are encrypted and it asks for a password to unencrypt it and I didn't create the pdf so I don't have the password.

I see the point of the encryption is to prevent you from viewing or updating the pdf

You do have access to the note
Any reason you can't make your notes in the Evernote Note itself and not try to modify the pdf

[SusanHilton 2]

I want to write on the pdf to show corrections to documents/pictures/contracts.

[SusanHilton 2]

I can print the document to paper and then scan back in as a pdf and it has no encryption but there has got to be an easier way!

 

[DTLow 5,736]

33 minutes ago, SusanHilton said:

I can print the document to paper and then scan back in as a pdf and it has no encryption but there has got to be an easier way!

 

I suspect we're no longer talking about encrypted PDFs 

[MaidMeri 0]

On 2/8/2017 at 9:24 PM, DTLow said:

I suspect we're no longer talking about encrypted PDFs 

We are. Susan's solution is what I'm contemplating as a very low-tech way to 'decrypt' a pdf, although it would involve a trip to a printshop as I don't have a printer. I've just run into this problem for the first time and I'm pretty annoyed. All I want is to read and highlight the document.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, MaidMeri said:

We are. Susan's solution is what I'm contemplating as a very low-tech way to 'decrypt' a pdf, although it would involve a trip to a printshop as I don't have a printer. I've just run into this problem for the first time and I'm pretty annoyed. All I want is to read and highlight the document.

If the pdf is encrypted, I don’t understand how you are able to print it

 

[MaidMeri 0]

8 minutes ago, DTLow said:

If the pdf is encrypted, I don’t understand how you are able to print it

Ah - you can't print them either? :/

[oz-eh 1]

On 8/22/2017 at 7:49 PM, DTLow said:

If the pdf is encrypted, I don’t understand how you are able to print it

 

I have credit card statements in PDF from American Express that are encrypted and cannot be annotated in Evernote. At the moment I have to print it out and do it with a pen and paper. So I don't understand why encrypted PDF cannot be printed? I just bought a new iPad Air which supports Apple pencil and it will be handy if I can do it without printing it out to save paper and also that I can carry the documents without scanning them again. 

[PinkElephant 8,115]

Use the „share“ (Open with ...) option to open the pdf from within EN, use an app that can decrypt it, and handle it there. Personally I use PDF Expert for my pdf editing on my iPad.

When done, share it back to EN. And yes, since this is a workaround, it has one downside: The pdf will be in a newly created note, not the original one. This works different on a Mac, where the altered document is send and stored in the original note, overwriting the existing one.

[DTLow 5,736]

3 hours ago, oz-eh said:

I have credit card statements in PDF from American Express that are encrypted and cannot be annotated in Evernote. At the moment I have to print it out and do it with a pen and paper.

That works, but my preference is to decrypt the pdf > annotate > re-encrypt   
The pdf decryption/encryption is not an Evernote feature
- it has to be done external to Evernote using a dedicated pdf editor   
 I use the Preview app (Mac)

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