# Password protected Word documents

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/password-protected-word-documents/161898>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 17, 2003, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/password-protected-word-documents/161898 "2003-03-17T02:27:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Hirka\_T\_Bawa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/db5fbb/32.png) [@Hirka\_T\_Bawa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hirka_T_Bawa)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2003, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/password-protected-word-documents/161898/1 "2003-03-17T02:27:00Z")

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My Girlfriend just started a new job, the previous person in her position password protected some Microsoft Word documents on her computer. Does anyone know where I might be able to find some sort of crack or a way to by-pass the password protection? Thank you.

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2003, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/password-protected-word-documents/161898/2 "2003-03-17T02:31:30Z")

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Generally, questions about password cracking aren’t welcome here. Have her check with her supervisor. He or she might have that information. Otherswise, it’s the company’s responsibility to figure out how to unlock them.

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**Author:** ![polymur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7993a0/32.png) [@polymur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/polymur)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2003, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/password-protected-word-documents/161898/3 "2003-03-17T04:37:15Z")

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Assuming that the opening is “legally authorized”, tell her to try opening them in notepad/wordpad or a hex editor (e.g. hexedit). If there are perl programmers there, they might me able to run them through a parser that will extract the text.

If they are vba (programmed) forms and don’t need just the text, but rather the functionality, this won’t help.

I am not a programmer, but some have worked for me.

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**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2003, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/password-protected-word-documents/161898/4 "2003-03-17T13:35:50Z")

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- 
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    - No linkage, but there are commercial password recovery prorams as well as shady hacker ones out there. Try searching for “msword password cracker recovery” with Google. -I remember that the password security on Office97 docs was fairly simple to crack; I dunno how well MS did with later versions.  
~

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**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2003, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/password-protected-word-documents/161898/5 "2003-03-17T13:52:39Z")

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Try [anticode.com](http://anticode.com)

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**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2003, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/password-protected-word-documents/161898/6 "2003-03-17T14:29:36Z")

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I can’t see any good reason for you to need to know what’s in a document on a computer that you don’t actually own. This thread is closed.

bibliophage  
moderator GQ