How to unlock an edit-restricted Word document without the password

Step 1: Display developer tab on the ribbon

1. Open word options

2. Click “popular”

3. Check mark on “Show Developer tab in the ribbon”

Step 2: Save the document as rtf file

1. Open your document

2. Click “Save As” -> other formats

3. Select “Rich Text Format” and chose a filename

Step 3: Remove the password in rtf-file with Notepad

1. Open the rtf-file in notepad (All files(*.*) -> select file)

2. What you will see will look nothing like the document, but don’t worry. Press CTRL + F (or click EDIT then FIND) and type “pass” without the quotes and search for it. Above you can see how it looked in my document.

3. Delete the entire phrase including the waved brackets {}. Make sure to delete only one closing bracket per opening bracket. Otherwise you will get an error when opening it again. It my case it was only the password phrase, but you can also look for “readonly” and “writereservation” and remove these as well.

4. Save the file

Step 4: Deactivate the protection

1. Open the rtf-file in Word again. It will look exactly the same as before.

2. Activate the Developer section in the ribbon and click “Protect Document” -> Restrict Formatting and Editing

3. On the bottom of the sidebar that opens click the “Stop Protection” button. You will not be prompted for a password, because we removed it. Now the edit protection is also removed. You can close the sidebar.