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.
Now if I could only figure out how to crack protected Acrobat files.
Note that this does not work for File Open password protected Office files. Office encrypts the files with a 40 bit key for this type of protection. To break that you have to use either a brute force password hacker or a decrypter that tries all possible key combos until it finds the right one.
There's actually a free command line utility, named GuaWord that will decrypt Word documents. Keep in mind that it takes a few days to go through all the combinations to find the right one.
There are also other 3rd party tools to do the same thing that cost from between $30-60 dollars for a single system license.
hii
couldnt crack the word file mc script editor gives a error tht file is use
plz help me out with this
Posted by: dennis | Thursday, May 12, 2005 at 03:24 AM
Hey, thanks a bunch, your information has been extremely helpful.
Posted by: Sam Gordon | Thursday, May 19, 2005 at 06:26 AM
Workt perfect. Xactly wat I needed. Thx a bunch.
Posted by: Bob | Tuesday, June 28, 2005 at 12:32 PM
Excellent information. Had to wait for HTML editor feature to self-install in Word, but after that no problem. Appreciate the info.
Posted by: Ken | Tuesday, August 09, 2005 at 12:39 PM
Oh that is great info. Thanks much.
Posted by: Paul | Monday, August 15, 2005 at 12:09 PM
Alex, you ROCK! I owe you a beer.
Posted by: David | Tuesday, August 23, 2005 at 01:18 PM
Many thanks. So simple when you know how!
Posted by: Ray Kirkwood | Friday, October 14, 2005 at 09:49 AM
I'm trying to get this to work, however, perhaps I'm missing a step. In order for me to convert to HTML I need to have the document open and therefore already need the password. We do receive these documents on many occasions and it would be really helpful if I could get this to work.
Posted by: Richard | Wednesday, November 09, 2005 at 11:29 AM
This method only works for files that are Read-Only protected. Files that are Open File password protected are actually encrypted so you need to find software that will find the encryption key used to encrypt the document and decrypt it for you.
Such applications are usually around $30.
Posted by: Alexander Scoble | Wednesday, November 09, 2005 at 12:54 PM
Alex, you are GREAT! You allowed me to get out of a fix.
Posted by: Enrico (Italy) | Wednesday, February 22, 2006 at 08:28 AM
Oh man, what a great workaround. You made me a hero today. Thx.
Posted by: Kurt | Friday, March 10, 2006 at 08:56 AM
First class! saved me a bucket of work transferring info from a protected document. Thanks!
Posted by: Shylock | Monday, March 20, 2006 at 04:11 AM
Works in Word 2000 as well. Just do a search for "documentprotection" instead and erase the document protection line that it finds.
Posted by: Scott Armstrong | Thursday, May 04, 2006 at 08:27 AM
worked perfectly - sweet, thx.
Posted by: to0w1r3d | Thursday, May 18, 2006 at 11:09 AM
This works great ...do you have a solution for excel too?
Posted by: Steve Watson | Wednesday, June 14, 2006 at 11:00 AM
this worked great for me. the save as HTML was dumping the password info, but the opening in script editor did the trick. good stuff, here. thanks
Posted by: scott_edward | Friday, June 23, 2006 at 02:19 PM
Thanks, it worked perfectly!
Posted by: Jim | Friday, June 30, 2006 at 07:35 AM
is there any way to do the same thing with winzip????
Posted by: fdfafa | Sunday, July 02, 2006 at 05:42 PM
This worked perfectly!! Thanks so much!
Posted by: TraceyAllen | Wednesday, August 09, 2006 at 12:53 PM
It was a great help, thanks. It works exactly as I Need
Posted by: Francisco Mariscal | Sunday, August 13, 2006 at 07:41 PM
Great fix. It saved me alot of time!
Posted by: Luca | Monday, August 21, 2006 at 07:49 AM
Thanks for the info... it saved our Accounting person's behind & made me look good in the process.
Posted by: Steve Sharpe | Tuesday, August 22, 2006 at 11:44 AM
Many thanx, Our document writer encountered same problem, asked me for solution, searched net expecting to need a freeware remover tool and found your page on the first search-handed the solution over to her and it worked 1st go - your solution found and implimented within 2min of request.
Posted by: AndyG | Tuesday, August 22, 2006 at 11:52 PM
Unfortunately it didn't worked for me, the search didn't find the line.
What worked like a charm for me was the following:
-Open the document read-only
-Save as .rtf
-Open the .rtf document and save as .doc
With this steps I got rid of the password and the document had the same format more or less.
Cheers!
Posted by: Eduard | Thursday, August 31, 2006 at 03:45 AM
Works like a charm, Thank a lot!!!
Posted by: Luit Wagemaker | Thursday, August 31, 2006 at 07:15 AM
Thank you very much, this saved my day!!!
Posted by: Le Baron von Hell | Wednesday, September 13, 2006 at 04:32 AM
Well thank you. THAT was one hell of a nice tip, just open the doc in the script editor.
Thanks agian,
Bjørn
Posted by: Bjørn Andersen | Friday, September 15, 2006 at 02:45 AM
Thank you so much. Worked like a charm.
Posted by: Mark Macaulay | Friday, September 29, 2006 at 11:43 AM
Great help thanks, trying to fill out a job application form and all the field are too small to get details in and the form is locked, well not anymore.
Thanks
Posted by: paul-s | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 07:23 AM
Thanks a lot for the helpful info!
Posted by: Jon Wedd .com | Friday, October 06, 2006 at 05:59 PM
It worked perfect Thank you very much
Posted by: JP | Friday, October 13, 2006 at 12:49 PM
It doesn't matter if you post this or not. However, let me tell you that this procedure worked to perfection. I had read the same procedure in other places but yours was step by step and fixed the issue that I had. The key was the specificity of using Windows XP and using the MS Script Editor.
Thanks a million
EP
Posted by: EP | Friday, October 13, 2006 at 01:38 PM
I tried this but unfortunately the Script Editor immediately crashed... :-(
The Visual Basic Editor works fine but the MS Script Editor doesn't. The error message gives this information:
AppName: mse7.exe AppVer: 11.0.5510.0 AppStamp:3f137edb ModName: ntdll.dll ModVer: 5.1.2600.2180 ModStamp:411096b4
fDebug: 0 Offset: 000105f8
Any ideas? Complete reinstall... ?
Posted by: M Rubensson | Wednesday, November 08, 2006 at 04:55 AM
Note that you can also carry out the same trick in the XML file - save as .XML, open in a plain vanilla text editor, look for 'password' and replace the encoded password with zeros as described above.
In my experience this seems to retain some table formatting better than HTML route.
Thanks for the tip though - I wouldn't have tried the XML route without it!
Posted by: phil | Thursday, November 09, 2006 at 02:55 AM
So simply, but so clever........you Rule!
Posted by: Mustang Holmes | Saturday, November 11, 2006 at 06:35 PM
Simple and Easy. Excellent info.
Thanks and keep up the good work.
Posted by: samy | Monday, November 13, 2006 at 09:09 AM
Thanks, such a simple solution, just pee'd that I didn't think of that!
Cheers
Garry
Posted by: Garry McDonald | Wednesday, December 13, 2006 at 07:13 AM
Thanks, this was so simple and really helped!
Posted by: Patricia | Thursday, December 14, 2006 at 04:45 AM
Thanks, I cant belive it was that easy!
Posted by: Tim | Friday, January 05, 2007 at 01:29 PM
Hello,
Could somebody please help me!
I have got a piece of coursework saved in word as a word document, using word 2003. I have put a password protection on it and cannot remember the password. I have read about saving it as a different format, but i cant open the file to save it as a different format. I cant get to the hHTML because i cant open the file!
What do I do?
PLease Help!
Thanks Alot
George
Posted by: George Russell | Thursday, January 11, 2007 at 11:40 AM
U rock! I followed your instructions on how to unlock a ms word password protected document and it worked awsome. Thanks soooooo much.
Posted by: Gregg | Saturday, January 20, 2007 at 11:01 PM
I have got a piece of coursework saved in word as a word document, using word 2003. I have put a password protection on it and cannot remember the password. I have read about saving it as a different format, but i cant open the file to save it as a different format. I cant get to the hHTML because i cant open the file!
What do I do?
PLease Help!
Posted by: Johnny | Tuesday, February 20, 2007 at 02:35 PM
It's been a while since you wrote this article but to view a protected acrobat file without the inner security restrictions no printing, modifications, etc just download ghostscript (the engine) and gsview, they are both free just do a search. Open the file in question using gsview et voila no inner security restrictions. Note that this method does not work for files that have password protection to open the file.
Posted by: Robert | Friday, March 02, 2007 at 10:04 AM
Thank you sir!! This worked like a charm and just saved me quit a bit of time.
Does this work for excel files as well?
Posted by: B:ill | Monday, March 12, 2007 at 12:14 PM
Thnx heap!! This information is extremely useful! I've bookmarked this page for future reference :) Thanks again, Alex
Posted by: Brenda | Sunday, March 18, 2007 at 01:02 AM
Thanks a lot....this was really helpful.... :) :)
Posted by: Sid | Sunday, March 25, 2007 at 07:43 AM
Worked perfectly!!!Thanks a lot for the info.
Posted by: Rohit | Wednesday, March 28, 2007 at 09:49 PM
Thank you very much. Nice work...
Posted by: Lemik | Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 08:46 AM
Great stuff!! Thanks.
THis also works for form protection.
Remove the line Forms, and save the document! You can then set a new password! Thanks for the lead :)
Posted by: Astrorat | Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 01:50 AM
Thank....this is very useful.
Posted by: Vijay | Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 11:49 PM