The first step in cracking Pdfs, Zip files and others password protected files is to extract the hashed password. This can be done with utilities that come with the john the ripper package

Cracking Zip Files ()

John the Ripper:

# get the hash and output to zipHash.txt
zip2ohn myFile.zip > zipHash.txt

# attempt the crack the hash using john the ripper
john --wordlist=/usr/sharre/wordlists/rockyou.txt  zipHash.txt

using hashcat:
Once you have the hash extracted into a text file, take a look at it...
It is in a format specific to john the ripper, so you have to clean it up for hashcat.
Determine what hash mode is needed for PDF passwords using hashcat documentation, then crack the password using the Rockyou wordlist:

cat hash.txt | cut -d ":" -f 2- > clean.txt

# Cracking Pdf Files

get the hash and output to zipHash.txt

pdf2ohn myFile.zip > pdfHash.txt

attempt the crack the hash using john the ripper

john --wordlist=/usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt pdfHash.txt

john --show