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seamuskrat

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
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?
 
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? 😉 🙄
 
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
 
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.

musicpyrite said:
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? 😉 🙄
 
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.
 
seamuskrat said:
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?
 
Are any of these files harmless enough that you could post a link and give us a crack at it?
 
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
Applespider said:
No chance of just calling the ex member of staff and just asking the passwords?
 
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