Print-to-PDF is locked down. There’s a print option as part of the software, but it slaps my student email diagonally across every single page, which makes reading it kind of obnoxious.

I don’t intend to distribute (which I’m assuming is why it’s locked up so tight), but needing to log in and navigate to the text is getting cumbersome, so I’m hoping to just save a chapter at a time to my phone and whip that out to tackle my reading assignments.

Also hoping to preserve images, since a lot of the info is charts and such, so PDF seems like the best target, but open to any ideas.

…I suppose I could just suck it up and deal with their annoying software, but at this point I hate to admit defeat lol.

  • Corroded@leminal.spaceEnglish
    3·
    2 years ago

    If you wanted to grab a page or two could you print screen it?

    If it’s more than that I’d probably cross post this to a piracy community. I know that’s not your goal but the methods would probably be the same.

  • linuxPIPEpower@discuss.tchncs.de
    3·
    2 years ago

    anything that is on your computer, you must be able to save.

    1. Does Ctrl-S (File > Save) work? (unlikely). Can you select all and copy/paste?
    2. Try the browser extension SingleFile https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/SingleFile
    3. Since you already have your “license”, find a PDF backup online. https://annas-archive.org, PDFdrive.com, libgen (websearch for current URL), sci-hub (same), archive.org (need DeDRM from github to download adobe ebooks permenently)
    4. as someone else suggested, ask some pirates: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/
    5. Maybe it would be easier to remove the email address from the background. How to do that depends on what sort of fuckery is going on in the PDF and how nerdy you are. Can you open it in any editing software?
      • Dem Bosain@midwest.socialEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        What’s the website? I may be able to look at it tomorrow. Is it school-specific or one of those generic online document viewers?

        Try throwing NoScript at it? But that will probably just break the entire page.

          • Dem Bosain@midwest.socialEnglish
            3·
            2 years ago

            Noscript is another addon, it blocks Javascript completely. You probably won’t be able to log in, but it’s worth a shot.

            I just looked at the Elsevier page, it looks like what I expected. I’m sure there’s a way to get the docs, I just don’t have much access right now to search for it. My last recommendation is to try and find the book on a torrent site. My second last recommendation is to ask at !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com (I don’t know if that link will work) if someone knows about Elsevier, they’re pretty helpful, and you’re just trying to read a book you already have access to.

            Good luck.

          • linuxPIPEpower@discuss.tchncs.de
            1·
            2 years ago

            https://noscript.net/

            Some websites will fall back to a “simple” version when the javascript they prefer isn’t allowed. it’s good design. My guess is that these parasites will design their website without such accessibility principals and prevent you from using it except on their terms. But it’s worth a shot.

  • muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    U can overite the css that gets applied during printing to do nothing ask chatgpt about it (dont tell it ur trying to bypass drm tho it doesnt like that)