How to remove Word Protection in Office 2007
I am having a series of documents that are protected by a old version of Microsoft Office 2003. Now we had upgraded to Office 2007. I want some help to get rid of protection from office files but cannot do the same. When I try to open the forms in Word it shows me protection message. I cannot make changes in the form. How to turn this off completely and I can enable it back again.
re: How to remove Word Protection in Office 2007
My problem seems to be the reverse of yours.
I have protected a word document against unintentional editing using Word 2007. It works perfect (as was intended) when opening the file with Word 2007.
But when the file is opened using Word 2003, users are able to unprotect the document without using the password. (Using "unprotect" option under the tools tab).
Is there a way to prevent this, because only certain fields within the document should be open to editing, no matter what version of Word they are using.
I have tried saving the file as as Word 97-2003 Document and then going through the protection process again. Users are still able to "unprotect" the document using the method mentioned above.
re: How to remove Word Protection in Office 2007
Replying to Beth Melton's excellent advice (which did work): I also struggled for well over an hour before I hit upon this thread. My return suggestion is that someone at Microsoft needs to be fired. This abusive changing of working products into obscure and opaque processes that require wasting hours and hours of time that could otherwise be put to productive use is an insult to everyone not in the know. I don't know who you are, Beth, but if by chance you are someone with an opportunity to let Microsoft's WORD or Office 2007 development team know how people feel, tell them that I work for a Fortune 50 company and that Microsoft's team of inconsiderate meddlers owes my company some serious money for all the time we've lost. Here's my short take: once a better product comes along this offensive piece of barely usable junk is G - O - N - E. I should not have to spend 30 seconds searching for a command I've known how to use since back in the 1990's. If I treated my customers that way I would have been F - I - R - E - D!!!!!
re: How to remove Word Protection in Office 2007
It turns out that even after I thought Beth's advice would work, it failed when the documents were put into actual use. I cried on the shoulder of the head of IT for my department and learned that I had to have the Developer heading added to my WORD toolbar, replete with its suite of tools. This shortfall, we are told, was a conscious choice Microsoft made in its distribution of WORD 2007. If that is true, then everyone on the team responsible for that choice should be fired, and a court of law with jurisdiction in all 50 states and the District of Columbia should issue a permanent injunction against any of them ever being allowed to work in the IT world again! How incredibly inconsiderate and mean-spirited to obscure a tool that the rest of the world has been using for decades!
re: How to remove Word Protection in Office 2007
I saw some serious frustrations here.
Try this:
If you have open office installed (free download), you can save word file as .odt file. Then use right click menu OPEN WITH and then choose Word and it will open back up as word document.
Sloan
re: How to remove Word Protection in Office 2007
Sloan, I appreciate the thought. I am using, however, a company computer so the only software anyone can install on it is what has been approved for use by the company IT security group. Open Office is not on the list.
You use the word "frustration". This is an unholy understatement. My company has over 18,000 employees and probably more than 65% have computers assigned to them, which we must use for all company business. The larger holding company has over 225.000 employees and, again, probably 50 to 65% use computers for all company business. When Microsoft decides to just up and hide or obfuscate somthing we've known how to use for years and years it is going to cost 2 to 3 lost hours per user who used that feature but now are blocked. DO the math. If 20% of those users (so now were at about 50,000) each loses 2 hours, that's 100,000 hours at, including overhead expense, $100 per hour. So Microsoft's selfish and incredibly stupid (and possibly malicious) decision has cost us $10,000,000! Does Beth Melton think that Steve Ballmer is ready to reimburse us that amount?
re: How to remove Word Protection in Office 2007
Quote:
Originally Posted by
apoculamus
Replying to Beth Melton's excellent advice (which did work): I also struggled for well over an hour before I hit upon this thread. My return suggestion is that someone at Microsoft needs to be fired. This abusive changing of working products into obscure and opaque processes that require wasting hours and hours of time that could otherwise be put to productive use is an insult to everyone not in the know. I don't know who you are, Beth, but if by chance you are someone with an opportunity to let Microsoft's WORD or Office 2007 development team know how people feel, tell them that I work for a Fortune 50 company and that Microsoft's team of inconsiderate meddlers owes my company some serious money for all the time we've lost. Here's my short take: once a better product comes along this offensive piece of barely usable junk is G - O - N - E. I should not have to spend 30 seconds searching for a command I've known how to use since back in the 1990's. If I treated my customers that way I would have been F - I - R - E - D!!!!!
Amen, same goes for all the other programs in Office, I have spent endless hour on Excel and Powerpoint relearning features that I knew and was proficient. Is this an effort to create job security?
re: How to remove Word Protection in Office 2007
Thanks for all the info here everyone. I was able to successfully unprotect a document from our customer so I could add a digital signature.
I followed this method (you must be able to open the document):
Open the document and resave it as a rich text format (.rtf) - I had to physically open the document and resave as .rtf, if I just changed the file type to .rtf, I encountered errors.
Change the RFT file type to a .htm file type. (Here I didn't have to open the document, I just changed the name of the file on my desktop from .rtf to .htm)
Open the document in Notepad. Do a crtl+f for "password"
Then delete the line containing password:
(Yours wont look exactly like this, but should be very similar, make sure to only delete one { and one } or you will corrupt the code and be unable to open.
{\*\passwordhash 020000004c0000000100000004800000a08601001400000010000000280000003c0000000000000040e6c3d186974ae3f583 316e1656d5371d89938d5c4276ea551b5cb6db264411e76efcd3}
Then save the file and close it.
Rename the file to a .doc. (I didn't have to open it, just changed the file type on the file on my desktop)
Open the file. It should have kept all formatting. Go to the Review tab, Click restrict editing, Remove protection - and voilĂ*, you should now be able to make any changes you want.
re: How to remove Word Protection in Office 2007
Several of these methods will work, but in many cases, a simple way is
^A (select all)
^C (copy)
^N (new doc)
^V (paste)
close protected doc
... (edit, if needed)
Shift-^S (save as)
navigate to original directory
click on original file name (puts name in box)
Enter (or click Save)
Yes (to replace original file)
re: How to remove Word Protection in Office 2007
If you are familiar with VB.net, C#, VB6, or VBA, you can create your own unlocker by replacing each of the following lines with a single code statement:
define a regular expression for the RTF password pattern offered by carrod54
launch a file selector dialog
open the selected file with the Word API (or just open it if using VBA as a Word macro)
Save it as RTF to a temporary name
Read the entire file into virtual memory as a string
Use the regular expression to replace the password hash with an empty string.
Overwrite the temporary file with the string just changed.
Open the temporary file with the Word API (or just open it if using VBA as a Word macro)
Close the protected word file
Save the temporary file to the protected file's name and type (overwrite: true)
exit program