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Subject:Password protected documents From:"Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> Date:Thu, 24 Sep 1998 09:50:15 -0600
Shannon Folena reported <<a document that has been password protected
for revisions, and nobody remembers the password.>> and asked for
help on cracking it.
I can't help you with your specific question, but on the assumption
that the document is only locked against revisions, I can suggest a
workaround that will at least let you recover the file: open the file
with any other program (WordPerfect or PageMaker or Frame) that has
a Word import feature. I'd bet that most import filters simply
ignrore the password protection. If that doesn't work, and you can
print the document, print it using the Acrobat driver (free from
Adobe), then recover the text from within Acrobat reader. As a
last resort, a disk editor such as the one in Norton utilities may
let you recover the text. You'll lose various degrees of formatting
in each case, but at least you'll have the text intact.
Oh yeah... and for future reference, appoint someone as the password
coordinator and get them to assign all passwords and keep them
somewhere handy, like a cardboard file folder... NOT in a
password-protected file. <g> You're not working for the CIA, I assume
(a dangerous assumption! <eg>), so you won't need to worry much about
true password security.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
When an idea is wanting, a word can always be found to take its place.--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
