Password protected Word doc help

[Lynn]

I've created a password ages ago on a Word document that I have since forgotten. I now need to edit and print the document.

Is there anyway of getting access to the document when I can't remember the password?

[Beowulf]

Not easily and not without third party software I'm afraid !!

one search found this Free Word / Excel Password Recovery Software

have NO IDEA how good it is though!

[David Bailey]

Yeah, the whole point about password-protection is so that you can't do that sort of thing

You'd be better off trying to remember all the passwords you might have used I reckon.

[boardrider]

The password is almost certainly visible when you view it with a UNIX operating system. Do you know anybody techie with Linux or similar installed? If not, .. pm me.

[David Franklin]

The password is almost certainly visible when you view it with a UNIX operating system. Do you know anybody techie with Linux or similar installed? If not, .. pm me.

Really? That's astoundingly poor cryptographic design, even given we're talking Microsoft here.

[Lynn]

The password is almost certainly visible when you view it with a UNIX operating system. Do you know anybody techie with Linux or similar installed? If not, .. pm me.

I forgot to mention. I'm female. I'm blonde.

Talking a foreign language here.... but thanks anyway!

I've already been onto our IT dep and they had no software (you'd think they'd have been asked this before...) and I'm not allowed to add any software myself.

I've tried dozens of passwords that I might have used. Alas I've clearly been too cryptic for myself.

I have a hard copy, I'd have just scannned it as editable text except that there are lots of pictures. But I guess I can do that and add the photos in again. Might even do it as a publisher file instead.

[DundeeDancer]

The password is almost certainly visible when you view it with a UNIX operating system. Do you know anybody techie with Linux or similar installed? If not, .. pm me.

Word 2003 and onwards has fairly good encryption these days, 128 bit keys etc.

I doubt very much looking at the file in Unix will help at all, will all be machine code.

In fact I'll be astounded if that Lynn manages to get her document back without remembering the password.

[David Franklin]

Word 2003 and onwards has fairly good encryption these days, 128 bit keys etc.

Except it apparently reuses the same keystream to encrypt different versions of a document that use the same password, making them relatively easy to crack by a professional cryptographer. (If you don't have multiple versions of the document, this doesn't help, however. Still, it's a noob mistake by Microsoft).

[frodo]

Word 2003 and onwards has fairly good encryption these days, 128 bit keys etc.
....
In fact I'll be astounded if that Lynn manages to get her document back without remembering the password.

Unless a weak and/or short password was used, in which case a dictionary attack / brute force attack is likely to work.

Also having a cracking tool exclude possibilities Lynn knows she wouldn't have chosen may reduce the possibilities sufficiently to brute force it.

[Vegetable]

microsoft does have a fail safe, 2 forgotten passwords but u have 2 phone them and go thro, a step by step over the phone...

Or find a nice freindly hacker to sort it out for you

[bigdjiver]

...of tangible business benefit.
Improving efficiency should be possible for IT security too. "I really do not think most of us need more money and people," he said. If firms moved to a model called "Security 3.0", IT security would anticipate threats rather than fight them after they hit, Pescatore said.
"We have been doing 'smack the rat' security," he said, but in the future the model should be chess - a longer-term test of strategy rather than reaction speed...

Surprisingly, this is relevant, because this clip was read first time from a computer mag using ABBYY fineprint Optical Character recognition. This came with a £29.99 Lexmark printer/scanner/copier.

If you have the original document scanning it in is a practical and cheap possibility.

[Lynn]

If you have the original document scanning it in is a practical and cheap possibility.

Yes I have a printed copy and a scanner with OCR software so I'll get it sorted that way.