Protect a PDF with a password

Use the Security tab to lock a PDF with a password, open protected files, and remove a password you know. You can also protect a whole set of files at once, each with its own password.

Requires Pro edition or higher

Password Protection and Remove Password need the Pro edition or higher. Batch Protect needs the Business edition or higher.

What password protection does

Password Protection encrypts the PDF with an open password. Anyone who opens the file in Farino PDF, Adobe Reader or another PDF reader must type that password first.

• The dialog sets one password. The same password opens the file and owns it, so there are no separate permission settings here.
• The protected file is always saved as a copy. Your original PDF is not changed.
• The suggested file name ends in -protected.pdf.

Protect the open PDF

1. Open the PDF you want to protect.
2. On the Security tab, click Password Protection.
3. Type the password in New password. Use at least 4 characters.
4. Type it again in Confirm password.
5. Click Confirm & Save.
6. The Windows Save As dialog opens. Choose a folder and a name, then click Save.

The dialog checks your entry before it saves:

If the PDF already has a password, the app asks you to remove the existing password before you set a new one.

Open a protected PDF

When you open a password-protected PDF, the Open protected PDF dialog appears.

1. Type the password in Document password.
2. Click Open.

If the password is wrong, the dialog shows Wrong password. Try again. and stays open. Type the password again. Click Cancel to stop opening the file.

Remove a password

Remove Password creates an unprotected copy of a PDF you can already open.

1. Open the protected PDF and enter its password.
2. On the Security tab, click Remove Password.
3. Type the password again in Document password.
4. Click Confirm & Save, then choose where to save the copy in the Windows Save As dialog.

The suggested file name ends in -unlocked.pdf. The protected original is not overwritten.

If the PDF has no password, the app shows This PDF has no password to remove.

You need to know the password. Remove Password does not bypass or guess passwords.

Protect many PDFs at once

Requires Business edition or higher

Batch Protect encrypts a set of PDFs, each with its own password, and returns all of them in one ZIP file. The passwords come from an Excel workbook.

Prepare the password list

Create an .xlsx workbook with one row per file. The first row holds the column names. For example:

• The file column can hold the full file name or the name without .pdf. Upper and lower case do not matter.
• A PDF without a matching row, or with an empty password, is skipped.

Run Batch Protect

1. Close all open documents, so the panel starts empty. When a document is open, the panel loads that document and does not show the file buttons.
2. On the Security or Automation tab, click Batch Protect.
3. Click Choose PDFs… and select the PDFs. You can also drag the PDFs onto the panel.
4. Click Choose password list (.xlsx)… and select the workbook. You can also drag it onto the panel.
5. In Column with the file name and Column with the password, type the column names from the first row. If you leave them empty, the first and second columns are used.
6. Click Protect All & Download ZIP.
7. In the Windows Save As dialog, choose where to save the ZIP file.

The panel confirms how many PDFs and rows were loaded, and which column names it found. After the run, it reports how many files were protected and how many were skipped because no password was found. If no file name matches, nothing is saved and the app shows a message.