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General discussion

Rogue PDF

by rotebaron Feb 8, 2011 10:27AM PST

I accidentally ran my scanner without a document in it. The result was a black PDF. No use to anyone so I threw it in the Trash.
When I later came to empty the Trash, a dialogue informed me, that due to a locked file the Trash could not be emptied; did I want to remove the file and continue? I did, so I clicked to remove and continue. The Trash emptied and I had the locked PDF on my desk top.
Now, I can find no way to unlock this file to dispose of it. In despair I created a folder to dump it into out of the way. When I dragged and dropped it into this, low and behold it appeared in the folder but also remained on my desktop!
On checking the Trash folder I found it was also still in there. I can not now empty the Trash, it seems, unless I again elect to remove the file and then clone it yet again.

What can I do to rid myself of these PDFs

I run an iMac Intel Core 2 Duo, using OS X 10.6.6, with Preview 5.0.3, Adobe Reader 9.4.1 and Adobe Acrobat Professional 8

All help greatly appreciated.

RB

Discussion is locked

3 Posts
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Right click or Control + Click on
by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Feb 8, 2011 9:10PM PST

the offending PDF.
Choose Get Info from the menu that appears
You should notice a padlock icon in the page that appears
In the General section you should see a box marked Locked.

Uncheck the box.

Now you should be able to delete it.

Alternatively, put the item in the trash and then hold down the Option key and choose Empty Trash from the Finder menu

P

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Rogue PDF
by rotebaron Feb 8, 2011 11:59PM PST

Thanks for your suggestions: I am glad that you came up with these two solutions.
As it happens I had already tried them both, and both failed.

So why am I glad?
Well it is nice to be reassured that the solution was not staring me in the face and that I just had not wits enough to see it. As I am sure you will appreciate, on the occasions when one finds oneself sitting alone with a recalcitrant computer, it is easy to seriously doubt your own abilities. However when a problem does not turn out to be too obvious you take heart that you are not such a chump.
So for the moral boost at least, I thank you.

Okay so those two routes failed, but the problem has been resolved.
How?
Well thats were it gets spooky...

I shut down my computer, something I rarely do, I normally leave it in sleep mode.
When I returned to work, after a while I had a lot of dross in the Trash, so I gave it another shot. As before, when advised that the Trash could not be emptied because it contained a locked item, I did not choose 'remove the file'as this had been the start of my pdf breeding programme, but did, as yesterday, try 'Remove all Items". Low and behold, all, yes all the Trash vanished.

Heartened by this I then dragged the offending pdf off the desktop and into the Trash. Same dialogue, same procedure; Trash gone. That left the file with the last problem pdf, and this went the same way.

So why didn't it work yesterday?
Well the rogue PDFs are gone, and that will do me. I can live with an enigma.

RB

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why didn't it work yesterday?
by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Feb 9, 2011 8:58AM PST

because something, probably very tiny, was bent in the OS and prevented the correct course of action.

The reboot forced a reload of the OS, all nice and clean, and all clicked back into place.

Sometimes a reboot will cure lots of little problems and, sometimes, some really big ones.

Pleased you got rid of the pdf's.

P

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