Remove Document Protection in Word
Ever run into situation where someone sends you a read-only password protected Word document, but wants you to make changes?
Here’s how to crack it if you are using the newer versions of Word:
If you are using office XP or 2003, you can change the view to HTML-Code using Microsoft Script-Editor by pressing the [Alt]+[Shift]+[F11] key combination.
Search for “Password” and you will find somethimg like this:
<w:DocumentProtection>ReadOnly</w:DocumentProtection>
<w:UnprotectPassword>19E8E61E</w:UnprotectPassword>
To remove the protection:
-Just remowe those two lines, and after saving the document , the protection is gone.
To remove the password:
-replace the Password, here “19E8E61E”, with “00000000″, save the Document and close “Script-Editor”.
Alternative you can save your document as .html and use a html-Editor
on February 2nd, 2009 at 3:48 am
I tried the “password” search and did not yield a find, but after a number of efforts I found “protect” yielded a result: Comments right at the top of the page in the Document properties section of the script.
So I just replaced “Comments” with 000000000, and bingo, it was editable! Then I hit Save in the Script Editor and when I had saved it, the line disappeared entirely.
on December 15th, 2009 at 2:05 am
A) Open document > Select edit menu > choose select all > then choose copy from edit menu.
Open new document > edit menu> paste.
Select tools menu> choose options> window opens with options. Select form different tabs the edit
tab> make sure that al desired boxes are selected.
Select save tab>choose and mark box>ask about properties
accept or Apply options and close.
Save new document different name. When saving it should ask if you want to save properties>
choose not save. Maybe it asks if you want to modify properties> choose yes> select box archive
amongst read only, hidden or archive.
on March 8th, 2010 at 3:51 am
Thanks for the information!
+1 helpful
on September 29th, 2010 at 1:33 am
[…] editing. In office 2003 this can be fixed by the use of the Script Editor – as seen in this example. However in 2007 the method is a bit different, here is what I had to do – inspired by the […]
on September 29th, 2010 at 1:37 am
Hi – good post, thanks! I have linked to it in an example where the same situation is explained for Word 2007 – That example can be found here: http://endofstream.com/remove-document-edit-protection-in-word-2007/
Best regards