Downloaded PDF from TD Bank not editable.

[PaintedStuff]

TD Bank's statements are downloaded as Secure PDFs.  In order to edit (I like to highlight them as I reconcile my balance each month) I need to enter a Permissions Password.  I called the bank and they said it's something I need to do within my software.   I'm using Acrobat Pro DC 

Help please!!!

Thanks.

[Test Screen Name · Accepted solution]

Yes, they don’t issue passwords and their call centre staff won’t know about them. But there will be a password to lock out editing. Most banks seem to do this strange and inconvenient thing.

[PaintedStuff · Accepted solution]

I eventually found a work-around.

"Print to Microsoft PDF" and save with another file name.

[try67]

They need to give you the password so you could do it. We can't help you

get around it without the password.

[PaintedStuff]

There is no password.  I used to be able to edit them and in 2017 they changed something with their online banking system and I haven't been able to since.  I've spoken to a few people in their IT department.  They do not issue passwords.  They said it's something with MY Adobe software.

[try67]

They are wrong.

[Test Screen Name · Accepted solution]

Yes, they don’t issue passwords and their call centre staff won’t know about them. But there will be a password to lock out editing. Most banks seem to do this strange and inconvenient thing.

[PaintedStuff · Accepted solution]

I eventually found a work-around.

"Print to Microsoft PDF" and save with another file name.

[doctorsney]

thank you, this save as method circumvented the encryption, another hoop to jump through but whatever.

I'm also using this to do my book keeping for taxes, and want to annotate my digital bank statements instead of printing out reams of paper to markup physically.

Thanks to y'all for hashing out a soluttion that could be easily googled.

[doctorsney · Accepted solution]

oh for anyone wondering my workaround/workflow on OSX Catalina was open the statement pdf in Preview and then:

File > Export as PDF... and the resulting file will be editable/saveable 

(because at some point I have spent hours marking up a pdf only to realise my marks would not be saved, and there was much gnashing of teeth and renting of garments and wailing)

[Mike Richford]

This worked for me , Thanks!

[default5r51k6zzosea]

That doesn't work - I've tried that and it print gibberish in Notepad, no matter what I do; however, I did find a workable to way around.  When you go to File, Export, choose export to picture.  Once it's exported and saved, right click on the picture and choose Covert to Adobe PDF.  Works very well!

[shirley24868257328s]

a cut above the average bear

[jwdooley]

I did a similar thing using printscreen.

[LinaLu]

I tried this just now and it worked for me. The text was slightly grainy but it's fine for my purposes.

[LRITjason]

Thank you!! This totally fixed my issue. Bank statements downloaded from their website did not allow for redacting (weird, I feel like bank statements are probably the most redacted documents ever...) anyway, this worked and you're a life saver. 

[60423939636424569ve89]

I am using a macbook.  I was able to open it as editable format by:

1) Right click on the pdf in Finder

2) Select the "Open with" and then select "Save as Adobe Pdf"

3) in the Pop-up window, select for 'Adobe PDF settings' as "Press Quality"

4) Choose a NEW Filename(different from original filename).

You should be all set now..

[darlaha]

Has anyone found a workaround for this issue? The print to Microsoft pdf used to work, but I found that is not the case any longer either. Oddly enough I can't even print to paper and rescan. Creepy but it still thinks it is a password-protected document.  I have always kept the 12 months together as one year and now Adobe will not allow me to combine the monthly statements.  This is most frustrating.  HELP!

[Test Screen Name]

These files ARE protected and Adobe software WILL respect that. Complaints should be made to the bank. They will tell you it is to protect against fraud. Not sure how it does, but we are stuck with it. 

To combine files use the “portfolio” option. 

[darlaha]

Thank you this is an acceptable workaround. I only wish someone had suggested it before

[Charles289027183iqn]

I'm not sure this comment will offer much help but it is being made to share in your frustration. This issue not only affects editing but it also affects encryption too.  Adobe Pro fails to work for this most basic use case (the whole reason why many of us purchased Adobe Pro). This is not the bank's or financial institution's issue.  This is Adobe's issue to fix. Adobe, please fix this.

[fxm]

this is a real pain.  the best workaround i could find was to export the online pdf as a word doc and then save the word doc as a pdf

[kthxbyte]

Please don't think I agree with this rationale, but the logic behind bank statements being uneditable is because they are used for many purposes: they help adjudicate billing issues between customers and private businesses, are used to prove you're don't have recent NSF fees, or even required for low-income citizens to apply for a payday loan (terrible idea, yes, but when you don't have another option I can understand that decision-making process). Since they can be so versatile, making them editable increases the chances of fraud and identity theft.

So I absolutely understand why none of the content of a bank statement should be editable. When it comes to highlighting a signed document, I'm not sure how that could possibly be a problem, but redacting a signed document is a bit more complicated of an issue that needs to be looked at by real experts.

However, I'm looking at my last statement and it is NOT a signed document... Therefore, I should be allowed to redact whatever information I fancy, even though I understand that I still can't edit the document.

Adobe needs to think this through. This is not a debate that armchair lawyers should be having on a tech-related forum... It's something they should have thought of when they came up with the feature.

[Test Screen Name]

Adobe thought this out over 20 years ago when they came up with the feature. The feature is now a standard applied (or ignored) by everyone.

Adobe did add the prompt for permission password a few years back. This didn't change the security model but was a great time saver if you had that password, because otherwise you had to remove the security, make the changes, and put it back.

[try67]

It's quite easy to get around a PDF security policy (although I won't explain how), but not so with a digital signature.

A file that is just secured and not digitally signed can not be trusted to not have been modified, basically.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Many banks are now doing this, but the security settings are incorrectly set to prevent commenting (such as highlighting entries on the statement). Most banks are using 3rd party PDF-generating software to create our bank statements, and it's questionable how well those geeks understand PDFs.

Acrobat and the PDF standard does allow for security on the PDF as well as commenting/highlighting. The programmers need to learn about this setting.

One of my banks goes even further by setting the PDF to hide all menus, so the average user can't even save their monthly bank statement to their computer.

Complain to your bank about these insane settings they're building into your PDFs.

[usability medic]

Thanks to all who provided workarounds.  I used the workaround provided by doctorsney and it worked.

TD claims the reason they lock this down is becuase of federal regulations, because we're not supposed to be able to edit the data on our statements.  While that is completely understandable, I tried to explain to them that commenting (for the purpose of highlighting or adding a comment about payment date and related details) does NOT edit the data and simply adds information "on top" of the document but TD thinks that's still editing.

So the workaround is a Godsend.  Thanks so much.