.spdf?

Does anyone know how to read a .spdf file on linux? I've been googling for about 2 hours, and i haven't found anything yet. I have to have the e-book for my class that started today, and i can't get it to read it. Any help would be nice.

not so much. I already knew what the file extension stood for, I'm asking if anyone knows how to read the extension .spdf on linux.

maug wrote: If you follow the link on that page, you should be able to read it on a windows or mac system. Assuming you have the password.

Windows / Mac = Epic failure… Not just as an OS, but as a suggestion. I've already stated 3 times that i'm running linux. If you haven't figured it out by now, maybe you should re-read over the posts.

maug also wrote: I would suggest browsing the linux community, for whatever your distro is. I'm sure someone has had this problem before. If that doesn't work out, ask a classmate or the professor.

I'm in the process of doing that, but the fact that the software you are suggesting is written for windows poses the problem. Linux + M$ = doesn't come out very good.

Thanks for the suggestions, though.

I found a solution, hope it helps.

link: http://twinturbo.org/security/sealed-pdf/

So, the solution is as follows:

1. Set up a cups “print to pdf” virtual printer on a separate Linux machine (a similar approach probably should work for a Mac). I used the freely available cups-pdf program. Make sure printer is samba shareable over the local network
2. Browse to the pdf printer from your Windows machine and double-click to install a printer driver (I used the already present HP 1200C/PS driver which enables high resolution color pdfs)
3. Print to the resulting driver. The .pdf file will then be (automatically) saved to your Linux Desktop

.spdf files are encrypted .pdf files, either using adobe's native encryption or Oracle's SealedMedia encryption. If it's a school textbook you download, like from ichapters.com, then it's probably SealedMedia. I haven't found a way to break the encryption directly, you have to find a weak spot in its armor and exploit it that way. The two weakest spots are when the file is sent to the printer and when the file is sent to the monitor. The Oracle IRM Desktop for Windows and Unsealer for Mac are client apps that authenticate with a server, delivering your limited-usage license over an encrypted link. Once you install the program, you download the .spdf files to your harddrive and open them up with your browser, which now has a plugin installed that decrypts the files into a readable .pdf. I tried installing different "print to .pdf" printers, however the program detects them as an attempt to remove the embedded copy-protection and prevents you from printing to anything other than a hardware printer. Fortunately, you can navigate to c:\windows\system32\spool\printers\ and capture the *.spl file that windows creates as a temporary buffer for the printer. OneNote 2007 supports this capture process natively; all you have to do is click "print" from within the browser, select "send to OneNote" and OneNote 2007 will automatically capture the *.spl file and convert it into an image, and inject it into a note file. Then, from within OneNote, you can click on "file" and "export as .pdf" - you now have an unencrypted version of the original document, although it will contain a large white margin (inserted from OneNote) and a watermark bearing your email address or login information (from Oracle's SealedMedia). I used some simple free programs to batch extract the images from the new .pdf's, crop the images to remove the watermark, and insert them into a new .pdf container. I spent $57 at ichapters.com for my History textbook, decrypted the .spdf's into regular pdf's, burned them to a dozen CD's and then sold them to other students taking the same class for $20 each (our on-campus bookstore wants $120 for the textbook). Of course, I didn't charge the cute redhead sitting next to me in class and she gave me her number in gratitude! :happy:

I use OpenSUSE 11 90% of the time, but I have Vista installed to a secondary partition for times like these, when I come across a problem that can currently only be solved in Windows. If you're really desperate, PM me and I will decrypt the .spdf's on my machine and email them back to you the next day. Or try installing the Oracle IRM Desktop in Wine or another proprietary emulator - you might have better luck then I did.