How to remove 'anti-piracy' footers from complex PDFs? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Thorned_Rose@sh.itjust.works to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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I have some sewing patterns that I would like to share (and hopefully swap) but all of the PDFs have a

"This was purchased by John Doe john.doe@email.com #ordernumber - if you are not John Doe, please dob in the person you got this from to company@example.com so we can sick our lawyers on them"

sorta footer on every single page.

Obviously for privacy reasons (and because I don't actually want lawyers sicked onto me), I need to remove this footer.

These are often complex PDFs with more than a hundred pages and multiple layers.

I managed to successfully remove the editing password (not user/viewing password, just can't edit without password) with qpdf --decrypt. But removing that footer has left me at a dead end. I have even tried manually removing every single instance of those footers using Master PDF Editor but saving the file flattened it and you are no longer able to show/hide layers which is essential for correct printing. (Please don't ask me how many different PDF editors I have tried because it has been so so SO many I have lost count).

Not that I really want to have to manually edit this out on what could amount to over a thousand pages but searching for a command to remove a certain phrase has come up empty. Even Master PDF Editor doesn't seem to have a bulk remove or search and replace function (just search).

I use Linux btw.

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[-] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 1 points 1 year ago

You could do this with a PDF editor, then print to PDF so it's a new file.

Or use a PDF to Word converter (or similar), which would enable removing such things. Though that can be tricky

[-] Thorned_Rose@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

I tried doing print to PDF but it flattened the resultant PDF so the layers were lost. Almost all of the software I used to try converting altered the PDF layout in some way and patterns must not change at all, otherwise they get messed up :/

this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2025

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