Third times the charm (I hope)

[seamuskrat]

I do apologize for having three posts with the same content. But MR has been flaky and my other two posts got eaten by the system....

I have a word document that is password protected to changes.

i can open it, enter text in the text fields, print, etc. but I cannot change the actual document. I have tried save as, copy and paste and no luck.

I have about 100 of these forms, all inherited from a staff member who retired and no one knows the password.

i do not like the idea of recreating all of these just to update a few contact names and emails.

Is there a hack or utility to means to by pass a Protected document with a password?

[musicpyrite]

Uhh, I think I know what your talking about.

Select the icon, press command+I to get info, then go down to the tab marked Ownership & Permissions. Change anything necessary so you can 'read and write.'

If that doesn't work, why not just copy and paste all the info over to a new document? ;) :rolleyes:

[AppleMatt]

What version of Word were they created in and on what platform?

Generally the older the better, some Word version passwords can be decoded instantly.

AppleMatt

[seamuskrat]

We are talking a password within Microsoft Word, not OSX.

As for copy and past, you will see I have tried this and because the document is Protected to changes, this is not possible.

You can create a word document, protect it so you can distribute an online form that is not able to be altered. Much like a PDF file. It was created in Office XP on a PC, and transferred to my machine via CD. I use Office X.

Uhh, I think I know what your talking about.

Select the icon, press command+I to get info, then go down to the tab marked Ownership & Permissions. Change anything necessary so you can 'read and write.'

If that doesn't work, why not just copy and paste all the info over to a new document? ;) :rolleyes:

[seamuskrat]

I am beginning to realize this may be impossible. I cannot find info even on a windows machine how to bypass this security.

Funny how MS actually makes a secure file format.... More so than Adobe PDF.

[Applespider]

I have about 100 of these forms, all inherited from a staff member who retired and no one knows the password.

No chance of just calling the ex member of staff and just asking the passwords?

[jsw]

Are any of these files harmless enough that you could post a link and give us a crack at it?

[emw]

Here you go...

Article about the hack:

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/windows/0,39020396,39118935,00.htm

The hack:

http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/348692/2004-01-02/2004-01-08/0

I have yet to try this, so can't give feedback on if it works, but it's worth a shot.

My guess is that the password is the same for the 100 documents, so you might be able to script the hack.

[seamuskrat]

Funny you should ask. Sadly they were kinda forced out into retirement and are not the most cooperative ex employee. I tried.

I will try the suggestion sliste dbelow and see.

Thanks
No chance of just calling the ex member of staff and just asking the passwords?