How to Unlock Password-Protected Word Document?

Usually, we set a password to protect our Word document from being viewed. Such function has been arranged in Microsoft Word. When you finish editing a document, you can go to File on the top left corner and click Info > Protect Document > Encrypt with Password. Then, you can enter the password to encrypt the document. Of course, the below screenshot is from Office Word 2010. The steps may be slightly different in the other versions.

For such a password-protected Word document, how to unlock?

If you’ve known the password, you can easily delete it in Office settings. You can replace the original password with a blank one.

Steps:

① Open Microsoft Word and enter the password.

② Then, click File at the top corner > Info > Protect Document > Encrypt with Password.

Note: For Office 2010 users, please go to the Office icon at the top corner > Prepare > Encrypt Document.

③ Delete the original password and click [OK].

Since the format of Microsoft Word is open to the public (i.e. the .docx file can be converted to be .zip file along with the file extension change), many password crackers can crack down the Word documents within a few minutes. For example

If you’ve forgotten the password, you can try to create a blank document and then insert the password-protected document into this blank page.

Steps:

① Go to the Office icon at the top left corner > New. Then, create a blank document. Or, press the hot key [Ctrl + N] to do so.

② On the menu column, click [Insert] > [Object]. Select [Text from File].

③ In the pop-up window, find out the encrypted word document and press [Insert]. Soon, this file will be displayed and be allowed to edit.

From the above methods, we can see that the password can be cracked easily even though Microsoft Word has offered password protection. This function is not safe at all. If you want to protect your document well, we suggest you try Renee File Protector

Renee File Protector, professional software for file encryption, has high security and supports to encrypt files at any format. Besides, it can hide even disable the other people to modify and read the target files, providing users with the all-round file protection plan. Next, we will introduce how to lock word document with Renee File Protector:

① Install and open Renee File Protector. If you are a new user, please set a password for it.

② At the left pane, click [Encrypt File] > [Add Files] and then select the target file.

③ Select [Encrypt to gfl] or [Encrypt to exe].

If you encrypt the file to gfl, you should decrypt it with Renee File Protector; if it is encrypted to exe, you can directly enter the password to open it.

④ After that, set a password for the document in the pop-up window and click [OK] to confirm.

How to unlock the Word document with password:

If you don’t need to encrypt the word document, please double-click at it and enter the password to decrypt. Once the file is unlocked, it will be read without any password.