Hi Evan:
Sorry, you have not specified which version of Word and operating system you
are using, so you have made it almost impossible to answer your question.
However, I think you are in deep do-do here. In the later versions of
Office, the "password" is actually the encryption key with which the entire
text of the document is encrypted.
Sometimes, you can get away with it using this mechanism:
1) Create a new blank document
2) Use Insert>File and navigate to the protected document
3) Select it and OK.
Depending on your version of Word and the version of Word you used to create
the password, that may work. Or it may simply prompt you for the password.
Sometimes, opening the document in OpenOffice will work.
There are websites such as
www.lostpassword.com that claim to be able to
crack Office passwords. If you are entirely comfortable giving your credit
card details to someone who cracks passwords for a living, you might try
them. You may find that they are expensive. You may also find that they do
not succeed: depending how clever you were in assigning the password!
If you have assigned a simple one-word password, all lower case, of six
letters or less, they'll get it in about 20 minutes on a desktop computer.
If you have assigned a 15-character password with mixed upper-and-lower
case, some *&% Special characters, and words that are not in the
dictionary... Call your local CIA Office! You may find someone sufficiently
annoyed by General Powel's latest comments to help you out: the Langley
supercomputer will probably have the password within a week or two ...
Hope this helps
from said:
hey
I created a word file a couple months ago and under security in the
preferences menu I typed in a password. I have no idea what it is. Is there
any way to get in to the file whatsoever? I've tried deleting the preference
files, opening from OS 9, and nothing is working. Any help would be great,
thanks
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John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
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