Protect your document with a password. How to remove edit protection from a Word document The file is protected from editing

Today, colleagues approached me with the following request: They had a Word document in which the fields were partially protected from editing. Accordingly, the question itself was: is it possible to somehow remove the protection and solve the editing problem?

So, what do we have at the input? Open the document

For example, we want to change the font in the Contract header, but here we are faced with a “bummer”, the fields for editing the font are not active

I decided to look here, but here a logical result awaited me

Trying to press a button "Limit Editing"

we receive the following message

Accordingly, click “Disable protection”

We get a window with a password, which we therefore do not know.

First of all, I decided to turn to the good old utility "Advanced Office Password Recovery" which helps in certain cases, we get this window

Apparently something went wrong. -I thought. And I decided to resort to alternative methods of solving the problem, and there are actually several of them:

1. Launch Microsoft Word, execute the command “File” – “Open” or click the “Open” button on the standard toolbar. Select the document you want to unlock. To remove protection from a Word document, run the command “File” – “Save As”. Select the save location, set the file type to “Web Page” and click “OK”. After this, you can unprotect the Word document.

2. Open the folder where you saved the document as a web page. This file will have an HTML extension. Right-click on this document, select “Open with” to remove the document protection, select the Notepad program. Use the Search By command to find the following tag in the document code: , in this tag, in turn, find the line, it will look something like this: w:nprotectPassword>ABCDEF01 . Between the tags there will be a password for changing the document. To remove a password from a document, copy it to the clipboard, then open the document in Word and unlock using the found password.

3. You can also open the document in a hexadecimal editor, find the password value, overwrite it with four 0x00. Next, open the document in Word and use a blank password to unprotect the document.

4. Save the document in .docx format. Change the file extension to .zip (call the context menu on the file, click “Rename”, delete .docx, enter .zip instead). Open the resulting archive, select the settings.xml file, and click the “Extract” button. Open this file with a text editor, find the following tag , delete it. Next, add the settings.xml file to the archive and confirm replacing the file. Rename the archive to a file with the extension .docx. Open the document in Word - the protection is removed.

Text documents created in MS Word are sometimes password protected, fortunately, the program's capabilities allow this to be done. In many cases, this is really necessary and allows you to protect the document not only from editing, but also from opening it. Without knowing the password, you will not be able to open this file. But what if you forgot your password or lost it? In this case, the only solution is to remove the protection from the document.

In order to unlock a Word document for editing, you do not need any special knowledge or skills. All you need for this is the presence of that same protected file, Word installed on your PC, any archiver (for example, WinRar) and the Notepad++ editor.

Note: None of the methods described in this article guarantee a 100% chance of opening a protected file. This depends on a number of factors, including the version of the program used, the file format (DOC or DOCX), and the level of document protection (password protection or only editing restrictions).

Any document contains not only text, but also data about the user, and along with them a number of other information, including the password for the file, if there is one. To find all this data, you need to change the file format and then “look” into it.

Changing the file format

1. Launch Microsoft Word (not the file) and go to the menu "File".

2. Select an item "Open" and specify the path to the document you want to unlock. To search for a file, use the button "Review".

3. You won’t be able to open it for editing at this stage, but we don’t need that.

Everything on the same menu "File" select item "Save as".

4. Specify the location to save the file, select its type: "Webpage".

Note: If the document you resave has special formatting styles applied, you may see a notification that some properties of the document are not supported by web browsers. In our case, these are the boundaries of signs. Unfortunately, there is nothing left to do but accept this change by clicking on the “Continue” button.

Password search

1. Go to the folder where you saved the protected document as a web page, the file extension will be "HTM".

2. Right-click on the document and select "To open with".

3. Select a program.

Note: The context menu may contain the “Edit with Notepad++” item. Hence, select it to open the file.

4. In the program window that opens, in the section "Search" select item "Find".

5. Enter the tag in the search bar in angle brackets () w:UnprotectPassword. Click "Search further".

6. In the highlighted text fragment, find a line of similar content: w:UnprotectPassword>00000000, where are the numbers "00000000", located between the tags, this is the password.

Note: Instead of numbers "00000000", indicated and used in our example, there will be completely different numbers and/or letters between the tags. In any case, this is the password.

7. Copy data between tags by highlighting them and clicking "CTRL+C".

8. Open the original password-protected Word document (not the HTML copy) and paste the copied value into the password entry line ( CTRL+V).

9. Click "OK" to open the document.

10. Write down this password or change it to any other one that you know you won't forget. You can do this in the menu "File" — "Service" — "Document Protection".

Alternative method

If the method described above did not help you or for some reason you were not satisfied with it, we recommend trying an alternative solution. This method involves converting a text document into an archive, changing one element contained in it, and then converting the file back into a text document. We did something similar with a document to extract images from it.

Changing the file extension

Open the folder that contains the protected file and change its extension from DOCX to ZIP. To do this, do the following:

1. Click on the file and press F2.

2. Remove the extension DOCX.

3. Enter instead ZIP and press "ENTER".

4. Confirm your actions in the window that appears.

Changing archive contents

1. Open the zip archive, go to the folder word and find the file there "settings.xml".

2. Extract it from the archive by clicking on the button on the quick access panel, through the context menu, or by simply moving it from the archive to any convenient location.

3. Open this file using Notepad++.

4. Use the search to find the tag placed in angle brackets w:documentProtection…, Where «…» - this is the password.

5. Remove this tag and save the file without changing its original format and name.

6. Add the modified file back to the archive, agreeing to its replacement.

Opening a protected file

Change the archive extension from ZIP back on DOCX. Open the document and the protection will be removed.

Recovering a lost password using the Accent OFFICE Password Recovery utility

is a universal utility for recovering passwords in Microsoft Office documents. It works with almost all versions of programs, both old and new. You can download the trial version on the official website; basic functionality will be enough to open a protected document.

After downloading the program, install and run it.

Before you begin to recover your password, you need to perform some manipulations with the settings.

Setting up Accent OFFICE Password Recovery

1. Open the menu "Settings" and select "Configuration".

2. In the tab "Performance" In chapter "Application Priority" click on the small arrow located next to this section and select "High" a priority.

3. Click "Apply".

Note: If all items in this window are not automatically checked, do it manually.

4. Click "OK" to save your changes and exit the settings menu.

Password recovery

1. Go to menu "File" programs and press "Open".

2. Specify the path to the protected document, select it with the left mouse click and click "Open".

3. Press the button "Begin" on the Quick Access Toolbar. The process of recovering the password for the file you selected will begin; this will take some time.

4. Upon completion of the process, a window with a report will appear on the screen, in which the password will be indicated.

5. Open the protected document and enter the password that was specified in the report.

We'll finish here, now you know how to remove protection from a Word document, and you also know how to recover a forgotten or lost password to open a protected document.

Sometimes situations arise when standard office documents are password protected from changes being made to them. This causes a number of difficulties, since files can be sent with the need to correct errors and omissions, and passwords are often lost or forgotten. Are there ways to remove protection in a Word document?

Opportunities to remove or bypass protection

To remove the protection, you simply need to resave this file with the new document properties settings. Simply save this file as a web page, and then you can start removing the password and formatting the document as you wish. The resulting file will be in HTML format and will open as a standard web page using your default browser. Right-click to open the page code. You will see the source code of the document, which in addition to the text will contain a huge number of working tags. Among all the tags, find the one that is responsible for the document password. It is traditionally called Password.
Between the open and closed tags you will find the password itself, which blocks changes to the document. Next, simply remove the tag that prevents you from working with the text. Save the changes and resave in reverse order as an office file, not a web page.

Other ways to remove a password

Of course, there are also programs that allow you to carry out these actions automatically. They are necessary when you are faced with a huge number of password-protected files. For example, you came to a new place of work, and the previous employee protected all files with passwords. In this case, you yourself or the system administrator will use one of the popular programs that will allow you to remove the password from all files at once, which is much easier and faster than doing it manually. These programs simply select the necessary files, you enter a password for them, and within a certain time the files are resaved without a password automatically. The time this procedure takes depends on the number of files and their volume, but usually it does not take more than an hour even with a huge amount of corrected document flow. We looked at the two most popular and effective ways to remove passwords; which one to choose depends largely on the volume of documents, since it is not advisable to use programs for several files; making corrections is faster and easier manually.

If you still were unable to solve this problem yourself, we recommend that you! We have fairly affordable prices and competent specialists. The offer is relevant for Moscow and the Moscow region.

Video: How to remove protection in a word document

! This article will not help you solve the ransomware virus problem, unfortunately. Only common sense and backup can save you from these malware. By the way, if you think that backup to a shared folder on the office network or to the D:\ drive is a panacea, you are mistaken. The virus can easily go through the shares available to the current user.

You can remove protection from a Word document that is protected, for example, from editing or printing, without any programs to remove protection; you don’t have to think about what kind of virus you will install on your system along with this software. So...

Save protected Word document as HTML

Launch Microsoft Word, execute the command “File” - “Open” or click the “Open” button on the standard toolbar. Select the document you want to unlock. To remove protection from a Word document, run the command “File” - “Save As”. Select the save location, set the file type to “Web Page” and click “OK”. After this, you can unprotect the Word document.

Open the folder where you saved the document as a web page. This file will have an HTML extension. Right-click on this document, select “Open with” to remove the document protection, select the Notepad program. Use the Search By command to find the following tag in the document code: , in this tag, in turn, find the line, it will look something like this: w:nprotectPassword>ABCDEF01. Between the tags there will be a password for changing the document. To remove a password from a document, copy it to the clipboard, then open the document in Word and unlock using the found password.

The HEX editor will remove the protection!

You can also open the document in a hex editor, find the password value, and overwrite it with four 0x00s. Next, open the document in Word and use a blank password to unprotect the document.

Unprotect a document using DOCX -> ZIP -> DOCX

This means that if you need to remove protection from a document already in DOCX format, then you can skip this step and immediately change the file extension to ZIP.

Save the document in .docx format. Change the file extension to .zip (call the context menu on the file, click “Rename”, delete .docx, enter .zip instead). Open the resulting archive, select the settings.xml file, and click the “Extract” button. Open this file with a text editor, find the following tag , delete it. Next, add the settings.xml file to the archive and confirm replacing the file. Rename the archive to a file with the extension .docx. Open the document in Word - the protection is removed.

The Word format stores billions of files, including documents with confidential content. Therefore, it is not surprising that among the built-in tools of the office application there are several convenient functions that allow you to deny access to text to third parties.

The protection is structured as follows: the user who is the owner of the file sets a password. When opening a document, the application (Word, LibreOffice, Google Docs and others) will require you to enter a password. Until the user specifies an access key, the file will not be opened, and no one will read the text contained in it.

Setting a password

If you have the 2007 version of Word, then you need to click on the “Office” button, which is located in the upper left corner.

The passcode is case sensitive, so make sure you haven't pressed the Caps Lock or Shift key.

It is impossible to recover a lost password, so make sure that the security key is not lost (forgotten).

In the 2003 version of Word, the same operation is done through the “Tools” menu, where there is a “Options” section with a “Security” subsection. Word 2010 retains the Office button, but the Prepare section has been replaced with a Protect tab, which includes an Encrypt with Password option.

Removing a password

If you no longer need to protect the contents of a document, you can also quickly and easily remove the password from it:

In the 2003 version of Word, the same actions are performed through the “Tools” menu in the “Options” section. Remove the key from the “Security” item - and the document will open without checking the password.

Prohibit editing

If you need the document to be open to other users, but only you can make changes, then set a restriction on editing. In Word 2007:

1. Open the Review tab.
2. Click Protect Document.
3. Select the restriction mode in the panel that appears on the right.

There are two types of restrictions - formatting and editing. In the first, you can limit the set of allowed styles, in the second, you can completely prohibit any editing of the document.

The user who opens the file can only familiarize itself with its contents, but will not be able to delete or replace anything.

1. Select editing mode.
2. Click the “Yes, enable protection” button.
3. Enter and confirm your password.

You can disable protection in the same way: you go to the “Review” tab, launch the “Protect Document” option and click “Unprotect.” Once you enter your password, restrictions on formatting and editing will be removed.

In Word 2010, the path to setting restrictions is slightly different: you need to click the “Office” button, go to the “Details” section and here click the “Restrict Editing” button.

In the 2003 version, the function is located in the “Tools” menu, where there is an item “Protect document”.

If you're going to share a text file and are concerned that someone will accidentally make changes to it, you can mark the document as final. This function is not a security feature, since any user who opens the file can change the document status.

The Mark as Final command helps protect text from accidental changes.

Additionally, users will be advised that the document in question is the final version.

A small icon will appear at the bottom notifying you that the document has been marked as final. All editing tools will become inactive; the file will be read-only.

Bypass protection

If there are methods for setting a password, then there must be a way to remove it. We have figured out the “correct” disabling of restrictions; but if you have forgotten the access code, you will have to resort to dishonest methods:

1. Change the file extension from "docx" to "zip".
2. Extract the settings.xml file from the resulting archive (in the “word” folder).
3. Open the file and remove information from it
4. Pack settings.xml back into the document archive.
5. Change the extension back from “zip” to “docx”.

This method only works in documents created in Word 2007 and 2010. If you come across a file with a *.doc extension, try opening it through the OpenOffice application.

Using other protection methods

If the built-in means of protecting a Word document do not seem reliable enough to you, you can additionally password-protect the file using third-party programs. In telling the story, we have already described several proven methods:

• Restricting access using Windows tools.
• WinRar.
• Anvide Lock Folder.

You can encrypt a file using any archiver - for example, the 7-Zip program does an excellent job. After creating an archive with a password, you don’t have to worry about the confidentiality of the document: cracking it will take a lot of time and money.