ineptpdf8.4.51.py

Inept PDF allows one to remove the DRM from an encrypted Adobe Digital Editions PDF, for example for the LA Public Library or from Archive.org 14-day loan / PDF download.

It is hard to get this working. Here is how, in 2022, I got it working on my Windows 10 machine:

• Assumes no Python already installed! (esp. Python 3.x)
• Install MSI for Python 2.7 x86, not x64!
• Download inept pdf Python script from Github
• Get adeptykey.der (not sure where or how I got this) from \~/Dropbox/RplusJ/adobe-digital-editions
• Install VC++ 9 from archive.org, to get Windows Python packages from source to compile with pip install.
• In PowerShell, run pip install pycrypto
• In PowerShell, run python and see that it is version 2.6 or 2.7, and test that from Crypto.Cipher import RSA works.
• (May need the Windows runtime crap mentioned on Epubor.com, but I am not sure. I don’t think I installed it.)

Convert one file:

• Find the PDF in \~/Documents/Digital\\ Editions and copy to Windows machine Downloads folder with a short, space-free filename, say xyz.pdf.
• Open Windows PowerShell and cd to Downloads folder. Assuming Downloads folder has PDF and adeptkey.der, in PowerShell run python ineptpdf.py adeptkey.der xyz.pdf out-xyz.pdf and wait a second or so.
• Voila! Rename out-xyz.pdf to a more meaningful filename.

Future work:

• It would be great if PyCrypto and ineptpdf (9 years old at this point) worked on Python 3.x so I could just pip3 install pycrypto and then run the script on the command-line (and on my Mac), but I tried porting some parts of the 3,000 lines of code to Python 3.x and failed.
• No time for such a project, but it would be worth it. Ideally, just pip3 install ineptpdf and all dependencies would install and you would have a working ineptpdf command-line script!