Sometimes text files of the .doc or .docx format created using Microsoft Word, it is impossible to edit or copy information from them. The reason for this is the included protection against such operations, backed up by a password. This article will explain how to remove this type of protection from a document in Word.
What are the ways?
To overcome the limitations when working with a document, 4 simple and free methods were invented:
- Insert text into a new document as an object.
- Removing a security setting using the WinRAR archiver.
- Removing a constraint by saving the document in HTML format.
- Convert to one of the related formats: .doc or .docx.
Each of these methods, allowing you to understand how to remove the protection of a Word document from editing, works in any version of the editor, starting in 2003.
Method number 1: insert protected text into another document
This method has one drawback: when you insert into a new document, only text and its formatting are added, but pictures, graphics and other multimedia elements are not.
The sequence of actions for this technique is as follows:
- Create a new document - Ctrl + N.
- Microsoft Word 2003 - go to the "Insert" menu and click on the "File" item. Specify the path to the protected document and click "Paste."
- Microsoft Word 2007 - 2016 - switch to the "Insert" tab and in the "Text" block, click on the inverted triangle near the inscription "Object". In the pop-up menu, click on the line “Text from file”. Using the “Explorer” window that appears, open a file that is protected from editing.
After this operation, the text will become editable.
Note. In order to use this technique in Microsoft Word 2003, the protected file format must be DOC (.doc).
Method №2: editing file settings using the archiver
To use this method, you need a WinRAR or 7Zip archiver program and the included display of file extensions. To make extensions visible, you need to:
- Go to the "Control Panel".
- Switch the view to “Large / small icons” in Windows Vista, 7, 8, 10. In Windows XP, nothing needs to be done.
- Find the “File and Folder Properties” or “Folder Options” icon for XP and other versions of Windows, respectively, and double-click on it with the left mouse button.
- In the new dialog box, switch to the second tab and find the line "Hide extensions for registered file types", uncheck it.
After preparation, you can remove protection from the file. This is done as follows:
- Click RMB on the desired document and select the “Rename” sub-item in the context menu or select it and press F2.
- Move the cursor to the end of the name and delete the last 3 or 4 letters, and write zip instead. Press Enter.
- Extract the resulting archive to any folder.
- Among the unzipped files, find a document called settings.xml. It is located in the Word folder.
- Right-click on it and select "Open with" and "Notepad" in the context menu.
- In the Notepad window, press Ctrl + F and enter the Protection value (without quotes) in the text box.
- After finding this text in the text, the following values must be deleted: w: documentProtection and w: edit = "readOnly".
- Save changes to the document by pressing the key combination Ctrl + S.
- Open the archive, go to the Word folder and drag the edited file into it.
- Start the backup procedure with the option to replace files with the same name.
- Change the extension of the received file to the original.
After that, you can open the document and edit it.
Method number 3: remove protection using HTML
This technique is approximately the same as the previous one in complexity, but it does not require any third-party software. The algorithm is as follows:
- Open a document protected from editing.
- Press F12, select the location to save the new file and select "Web Page (* .html)" in the "File Type" drop-down list.
- To the context menu of the created document, select "Open with" and "Notepad".
- In the “Edit” menu in a new window, click on “Find” or use the hot key Ctrl + F.
- In the window that appears, enter the Protection value in the search bar and click "Find Next."
- Find the line in the document: <w: DocumentProtection> ReadOnly </ w: DocumentProtection> and delete it.
- Save changes.
- Open the edited file with Microsoft Word and save it in the .doc or .docx format again.
Note. When using this technique, the formatting of the text is partially lost.
This is the description of the third method that allows you to remove protection from a document for editing in Word, completed.
Method number 4: conversion to DOC or DOCX format
To remove the ban on editing by this method, you need to:
- Go to the website of the multifunctional online converter Online-convert.com and change the language to Russian using the drop-down list in the upper right corner of the page.
- On the main page in the "Document Converter" block, select "in the DOC \ DOCX format".
- On the next web page, click on the “Select Files” button. In the “Explorer” window that opens, specify all the documents that need to be converted.
- Click on the inscription “Start conversion”. Upon its completion, automatic downloading of the archive with the converted files will begin.
This is the way to understand how to remove protection from a document in Word in an online converter.
Note. Not every Internet service can convert protection from one format to another. One of them is zamzar.com. It performs the conversion successfully, but the new file cannot be changed.
Ways to remove protection from a Word document are fast and simple enough for a regular user of this editor to freely use them.