Unprotecting A Protected Ms Word Document


If you negotiate lots of contracts I am sure you are familiar with the guy who thinks it is a great idea to lock the contract down so that it can’t be edited. It is incredibly frustrating when you go to markup and agreement only to find that it has been Protected.

Fortunatly there is an easy hack that will get you around this frustration and will save you or your assistant from having to retype the agreement. Dependeing on the governing law in your jurisdiction, this may be a violation of the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions, so be sure to only use it on your own documents that you have accidentally locked yourself out of:


To unprotect a Word document that has been locked, read on:

1. With the document open press F11 while hold shift & alt (Alt + Shift + F11). This willshould launch the script editor

2. Next select the find option (or hit Ctrl + F) & run a find for the word password.

3. This should highlight something like this <UnprotectPassword>012345678</w:UnprotectPassword>;

4. Delete the letters & numbers between the tags (in the above example this would be the 012345678);

5. Save the document in the script editor and close the window. You should now be back in your Word document;

6. From the Tools pulldown menu, select unprotect.


Result: Your document should now be unprotected.




Source: Sorry, I got it from an email from tech guy (friend) .. I do not know where he took it.