Open locked PDF - affinity designer 2.2.1

[shahar.d]

Hello all, I hope you can help me to solve it.

My Affinity designer got updated from 2.1.1 to 2.2.1 and now I can't open locked files or even specific PDF. Before this update I was able to open regular and locked PDF for editing, now I can open only regular.

I'm running Windows 11.

what to do? 😱😤😭

Thanks in advance.

[Hangman]

Hi @shahar.d and welcome to the forums,

Support for Encrypted PDF files was temporarily removed in v2.2 but will be available again in the v2.3 release and is already available in the 2.3.0.2096 Beta so you have two options:

1. Download the 2.3.0.2096 Beta, open your PDF file and then Save it as a Publisher Document which you will be able to open in 2.2.1
2. Use a Command Line Utility such as QPDF to decrypt the PDF file so it can be opened in 2.2.1

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

Download the 2.3.0.2096 Beta, open your PDF file and then Save it as a Publisher Document which you will be able to open in 2.2.1

Are you sure 2.2.1 can open document saved by 2.3.0? It shouldn't be able to.

[Hangman]

19 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Are you sure 2.2.1 can open document saved by 2.3.0? It shouldn't be able to.

I was somewhat surprised because I'm unable to open the same document with both the 2.2.1 Retail and the 2.3.0.2096 Beta versions open at the same time which is odd because they're supposed to act independently of each other but saving a document in 2.3.0.2096 then closing the file in the Beta version is (for some odd reason) allowing me to open it in the 2.2.1.2075 Retail version.

If I attempt to open it in both versions I get the message "This file is already open in Affinity Publisher 2 on this device"

I only discovered this by chance but would love to know why this is happening as it clearly shouldn't be. I'm assuming you're unable to replicate?

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

If I attempt to open it in both versions I get the message "This file is already open in Affinity Publisher 2 on this device"

It is surprising that 2.2.1 can Open a 2.3.0 file. Probably that will change before 2.3.0 leaves Beta. (I can confirm that on my Windows system, the files are still usable in 2.2.1.)

But if it can, it is not surprising that having it Open in two different applications won't work. Once you've Saved and named the file (but not Closed it) a ~lock~ file is created.

[Hangman]

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

It is surprising that 2.2.1 can Open a 2.3.0 file. Probably that will change before 2.3.0 leaves Beta.

That's my assumption too...

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I can confirm that on my Windows system, the files are still usable in 2.2.1.

Thanks for checking and confirming...

5 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

But if it can, it is not surprising that having it Open in two different applications won't work. Once you've Saved and named the file (but not Closed it) a ~lock~ file is created.

That's a very good point...