Checked against the current Windows build. The public download is still pending.
A password is a lock on the door
Protect sets an AES-256 password for opening the document. Whoever wants to read it has to type that password first. That is the whole of what it does — not a word on the page changes, and it is not a signature.
So pick the tool by what you actually need. Proving who approved something is certificate signing. Getting information off a page for good is redaction, which is its own tool here, and a password is not a stand-in for it.
The other copies did not get a password
Open the document, run Protect from the security tools, and read the filename before you go any further — protecting the wrong file is a quiet sort of mistake. The setting sits in the edit session until you choose Save or Save a copy.
Then remember what else is out there. The version you emailed last week, the one still in Downloads, the one on the pen drive in a drawer: none of them acquired a password because this one did. Encrypting a file protects that file. Check that the copy you are about to attach is the protected one.
Remove password needs the password
Remove password opens a document when you supply its correct password. It is not recovery and it is not cracking. If the password is gone, this tool cannot help you, and neither can we.
An unprotected copy is a new file with different rules about who may read it. Keep track of which one you are sending, and keep only the copies your own process actually needs. Nothing here is synced anywhere: the versions on your disk are yours to manage, and nobody else holds a list of them.
A locked file still carries everything it carried
Once somebody has the password, they have the document — all of it. Content you cropped out of view is still in there. So are the metadata and any attachments. A black rectangle drawn over an account number is a rectangle, and the number is underneath it.
The local-processing page sets out what the output check does and does not do: it rebuilds and audits a single PDF revision, which is not the same thing as sanitising a document. Decide what has to come out of a file before you send it. Afterwards is not a decision, it is a discovery.
Common questions
Can Creasepoint recover a forgotten PDF password?+
No. Removing a password requires the correct password. There is no recovery or cracking feature, and there is not going to be one.
Does protecting a PDF redact its contents?+
No. It controls who can open the file. Everything inside it — cropped-away content, metadata, attachments — is still there for anyone who has the password.
The tools this guide uses.
Open the complete 44-tool catalogue, review the current limitations, or check Windows release availability.