Acrobat PDF Comment Locks--unable to unlock

[Bea30799073p7xl]

Hi all and happy Wednesday! 

Recently, a few files I have shared with staff come back to me with all comments locked, so I can't delete them unless I go through and unlock every single one of them. When there are 800 comments in one of 10 documents, that is not feasible! The staff don't know what they've done, but each one has been using the online function to add their comments, rather than the app, and then download the file to send to me. I assumed that all comments were auto-locked for some reason in this conversion, but some comments (maybe 3-4) were not locked, so I don't know what could be happening. Does anyone know how I can advise staff to avoid this? Or does anyone know if there is something I can turn off in the settings that would prohibit locking comments? Thanks a ton! 

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

You can run a script in a custom command to unlock all comments. The following script, when either executed in the JavaScript console, or wrapped into a custom command will do that for you: 

var annots = this.getAnnots();
for (var i=0; i<annots.length; i++) {
    annots[i].lock = false;
}

[Bea30799073p7xl]

Hi! Thanks for your suggestion. I typed that into the "JavaScript Editor" but nothing happened--was that the wrong spot? 

[Karl Heinz Kremer · Accepted solution]

The easiest way to do this is to create a custom command:

Bring up the "Tools" tab in Acrobat and then type "New Custom Command" into the search field:

Then click on the "New Custom Command" item highlighted in the screnshot. This will bring up a new dialog:

On this dialog, select to "Execute Javascript", then provide a label and a tool tip (I used "unlock Comments" for both), and select to "Don't show options". Then click on the "Command Options" button and enter the few lines of JavaScript from above. 

You can now execute the custom command from the bottom part of the list on the right side of your Action Wizard page (you will find this name in the upper left corner of the toolbar). 

Open your document, then go to this page (you can search for Action Wizard in the tools search bar), and click on the "Unlock Comments' item (or use whatever name you've selected). This should unlock all comments. 

[Bea30799073p7xl]

It worked! Thanks so much for your help! 

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

Thanks for letting me know. 

[eliza_6560]

Confirming this worked for me too! Thanks for sharing this. 

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

Thanks for the feedback. Others looking for a solution for this issue will appreciate the confirmation that it works. 

[ana-maria_6293]

I followed all the steps but I cannot find the Action Wizard

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

Are you using Adobe Acrobat Pro?

[ana-maria_6293]

Yes, I have just started my free trial

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

In that case, it should be there. When you go to the "Help" menu do you see "About Adobe Acrobat Pro"? If you are on a Mac, this would be under the "Acrobat" menu. 

[tomburble]

I am also having this problem. It happened in a document without clear warning or reason. This is not OK. There should not be a need to run a custom command to fix this problem, which has been highly disruptive to my workflow. Not good enough!

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

I am not working for Adobe, so all i can provide is a workaround. To get this to the correct place, please file a bug report: https://www.adobe.com/products/wishform.html

[theo_1123]

Thank you so much for this, i cant believe it has to be done in this way. My own pdf file got its comments locked and my boss wanted the file without comments. Thank you

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

At least Acrobat provides a way to make it easy to implement the workaround. 

[Michael30183479xv5x]

Not easy if you have to rewrite the script above (its an image so I cant copy the text and paste into the custom command)

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

One of my comments has the script as text and you can copy and paste. Here it is again:

var annots = this.getAnnots();
for (var i=0; i<annots.length; i++) {
    annots[i].lock = false;
}

[Michael30183479xv5x]

Many thanks!
Michael

___

Michael Brown

Head of Bidding APAC

[phone numbers removed]