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Remove the (unknown) password from a
document protected for forms. |
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When you password protect a
document against opening, then that document is encrypted and you will
not be able to open it without the original password.
There are lots of
people out there who purport to be able to crack passwords, but Word's
protection is pretty good and does not come with any back doors, so
while you can break the password eventually by trial and error using
software that will try all possible examples, a suitably strong password
will take a seriously long time to break. There is an example of such
software listed on the favourites page
of this site. Then you have the dilemma of
whether to offer your credit card details to someone who cracks
passwords for a living. |
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Word documents protected for
forms are not secure. You may not be able to readily discover the
password, but you can easily remove it using the script editor
or by using the method shown later on this page. |
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Open the document in Word
then press ALT+SHIFT + F11. The document will be opened in the script
editor and will look something like:
From the edit
menu - select FIND and search for 'password'
The search routine will take
you to the area of the document where the password is stored -
The bit we are
interested is the unique sequence of digits in the middle of that line,
highlighted below in red.
<w:UnprotectPassword>5F23E53C</w:UnprotectPassword>
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| Note: |
If you
may need to replace the original password later, make a note of the
sequence of digits before overwriting with zeros. |
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Overwrite the
red digits with zeros.
<w:UnprotectPassword>00000000</w:UnprotectPassword>
Save the
document from the script editor. Close the editor and you can unlock the
fields without the original password from the forms toolbar
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Alternative method |
| Note: |
There is
no script editor in Word 2007 or above, so the above method will not work in that
version. |
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An alternative
method that will work in Word 2007/2010 (and also in earlier versions, but
without the possibility of restoring the original unknown password)
is to open a new blank document then insert the form into that document.
Word versions
before 2007 - Insert > File
In Word 2007/2010 -
Insert Tab - Object > Text from File
This will
produce a copy of the form without the protection. You can then make
your changes and re-protect the new form before saving it. |
| Note: |
There
will be a strong likelihood of formatting differences between the copy
and the original form, if the form was created from a different template
from the Normal template used to create the blank document. For example,
the form may have different margin settings from those in the Normal
template. The copy will thus adopt the margins of the Normal template
and not those of the inserted form.
Whilst
the original is protected there is no access to Page Setup, so it is not
possible to simply read the settings from the original form and transfer
them. Be prepared for some reformatting to match the original by eye! |
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