Problem: A PDF needs a login to read it

A “London rail and tube services map” PDF downloaded from the Transport For London website can’t be opened without a password when using !PDF or !PDFtest. When trying !GView to open it, a GView error message says “PDF file not understood (xref section interpretation error)”. I have come across this before where the pdf is a public document and there is no need for a password.

I can open it with a Linux pdf reader which doesn’t ask for a password. So is there a trick which will open it on RISC OS?

A “London rail and tube services map” PDF downloaded from the Transport For London website can’t be opened without a password when using !PDF or !PDFtest.

If you mean this one, then it says

PDF Version: 1.7 

in the document properties. I suspect that’s a bit more advanced than any of our viewers know about, although I could be wrong.

It loads fine in Firefox on Linux, FWIW.

When trying !GView to open it, a GView error message says “PDF file not understood (xref section interpretation error)”.

I see that 1.7 came out in 2006/2008, so it might be worth checking what version of GhostScript you have installed. I would have thought our ports were new enough to support it, but I can’t find a handy guide to what versions supported what.

If you mean this one, then it says

Yes, that’s the one.

I can open the PDF using !MuView on RISC OS, its available via Packman and also direct from https://www.riscosports.co.uk/vfp/

I note its in the VFP subfolder of that website so may not work on some RISC OS machines

https://www.riscosports.co.uk/vfp/

Oops… certificate expired.

According to *Show, I have version 8.64 of Ghostscript, but when I look inside !GhostScript, there is a subdirectory named 9_26 and the !Help file also says 9.26 both dated Jun 2020. Two directories, bin and 8_71 are dated 2018.

@Chris Hughes

Ah, yes, I had forgotten about !MuView. Yes it opens the pdf for me too. Thanks for that.

That means you are using Ghostscript 9_26 as an upgrade from 8_71

I have the same.

Looking at the MuView licence within the program it appears I can give it to people.

On the Mac no password is requested but Preview’s Inspector reports the file as encrypted, and “The document is unlocked with the user password”.

Obligingly exporting from Preview, as PDF, removes the encryption, and any spurious password request, to allow the exported PDF file to render on !PDF.

On RISC OS with Ghostscript 9.26 (2018-11-20) this obey file decrypted the file which !PDF then accepted. (GView didn’t do too well though!)

dir <Obey$Dir>
wimpslot -min 3500k
<GhostScript$Dir>.gs -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=unencrypted.pdf -f encrypted.pdf