Password protected PDF’s on Linux – part II

I’ve been attempting to read password-protected PDF’s on my new(ish) Linux laptop. I mentioned this a while ago, while still on my previous laptop, but yet again it’s the cause of fun and games.

KGhostview is as hopeless as ever with password-protection, but things have moved along, so I tried KPDF again. Wonder of wonders, KPDF 0.4 (running on my KDE 3.3.2) now accepts passwords (0.3 didn’t) and I can read the downloads from php|architect. However, the PDF rendering is pretty dismal. Sometimes the PDF loads properly (all 60-odd pages). Sometimes partially, with the remaining pages blank. And at other times some of the pages are corrupted. Eventually tiring of endlessly reloading in the vain hope of seeing what I was trying to see, I gave up and decided to install Adobe Acrobat Reader for Linux, my saviour last time. I seemed to have endless trouble finding the Linux download – at times the page defaulted to a Windows version, with no option to change this (perhaps it was international bandwidth playing up, as the page usually does eventually display all the right options). I even tried the forum, and couldn’t even read the posts, or log in as guest. Perhaps I was just having a bad day.

Eventually I installed Adobe Acrobat reader, and ran it. It crashed. Without leaving me much in the way of clues for troubleshooting. Just started up, then shut down again.

So back to KPDF and endless reloading… Perhaps I should try an old faithful – rebooting. I’ve become a bit rusty with this technique since moving to Linux.

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• Password-protected PDF’s on Linux

UPDATE: On rebooting my luck continued, and X wouldn’t start. About half an hour later here I am back almost where I started (sans mouse, but hey, I’m not pushing it after this evening’s fun). Perhaps its time to go to bed.