When to generate a password
You're about to lock a PDF and nothing good comes to mind. Reaching for the company name or today's date rather defeats the purpose.
This tool builds a random password from the length and character types you choose, using your browser's cryptographic random number generator.
How to use it
- 1Set the length. Twelve characters or more is sensible for a document.
- 2Choose which character types to include: uppercase, lowercase, numbers, symbols.
- 3Press "Apply options and regenerate" until you get one you're happy with.
- 4Press "Copy" and paste it into Set PDF Password.
Common questions
- Is the generated password stored anywhere?
- No. It's created in your browser and shown on screen — refresh the page and it's gone. Save anything you need somewhere secure before you leave.
- Why don't I see the letter I or the digit 0?
- They're left out on purpose. I and l, O and 0 are hard to tell apart and get mistyped when someone copies a password by hand. Dropping the look-alikes removes a common source of errors.
- Is it genuinely random?
- It uses the browser's cryptographic random number generator, which is far harder to predict than the simple random functions often used for this.
- How long should it be?
- Twelve or more is fine for documents, better still with symbols mixed in. If you'll have to read it aloud to someone, though, a shorter one is more practical.