VBA to decrypt pdf with PDFtk server

[prati]

Hey,
I'm using PDFtk server for several tasks dealing with pdf files.

According to the manual and the examples - PDFtk Server Examples
there should be a way to decrypt pdf files.

Decrypt a PDF

pdftk secured.pdf input_pw foopass output unsecured.pdf

There is also a possibility to merge 2 pdf files that one of the is encrypted

Join two files, one of which requires the password foopass. The output is not encrypted.

pdftk A=secured.pdf 2.pdf input_pw A=foopass cat output 3.pdf

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A.pdf is the encrypted file I want to decrypt
The password for A.pdf is abc123def
B.pdf should be the new file without encryption

I created the VBA below, however it doesn't work.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sub Decrypt_Pdf()

Dim Wsh As Object 'WshShell
Set Wsh = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") 'New WshShell
Dim s As String

s = "cmd /c PDFtk " & "C:\Temp\A.pdf " & input_pw & "abc123def" & " output C:\Temp\B.pdf"

'Debug.Print 3, s
Wsh.Run s, 0, True

End Sub

 

[GWteB]

It is very likely that the command line is incorrect.
Cmd.exe can be found because the PATH environment variable of the Windows OS contains an entry to the folder where it resides on default. It's very unlikely the same to be true for the PDFtk executable. It is therefore necessary to enter its full path.
I also notice an inconsistency in the parameter line of the PDFtk executable. As it looks now, you specify a VBA variable called input_pw as the second argument. It is not declared explicitly within your procedure, nothing is assigned to it, so this variable of memory type Variant is most likely to end up containing nothing (vbEmpty).
Would therefore recommend to run a visible shell using Wsh.Run s, 1, True. It enables you to examine what the final command line looks like. And more importantly, whether there are warnings or error messages. The moment everything appears to run smoothly you can hide the shell again.

 

[prati]

Hey
I forgot " "
"input_pw"

 

[GWteB]

I already assumed that. By the way, you don't have to use concatenations. You can just write it one after the other in one go.

s = "cmd /c PDFtk  C:\Temp\A.pdf  input_pw  abc123def  output  C:\Temp\B.pdf"