Two types of PDF password
The PDF standard supports two distinct passwords. The "open password" restricts who can view the document. The "owner password" restricts what an authorised viewer can do — printing, copying text, editing, or adding annotations. You can set one or both.
How to protect your PDF in three steps
1. Open the Protect PDF tool. 2. Upload your PDF. 3. Enter an open password (required), an optional owner password, and choose which permissions to restrict. Click "Protect & Download". The result is an AES-256 encrypted PDF that works in any modern PDF viewer.
Choosing a strong password
The tool shows a live strength indicator as you type. A strong PDF password should be at least 12 characters and mix uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols. Avoid common words or dates. If you lose the password, no tool can recover the contents of an AES-256 encrypted PDF.
Privacy note
All encryption happens locally in your browser using the @cantoo/pdf-lib library. Your document is never sent to a server. The password you enter is used only to encrypt the file and is then discarded.