How to Remove Password that Restricts Document Editing in Microsoft Word

You can disable the “Restrict editing” feature in Microsoft Word which prohibits you from making changes and copying the contents without using a password. Follow this article from Bardimin to do so.

Microsoft Word comes with several features for creating and editing documents. In Word, you can use one of these features to restrict editing. When you use this feature, no one else can change your work in any way, which helps ensure its integrity.

You may want to take precautions to protect a Microsoft Word document if it contains sensitive information. You may want to restrict who can read or edit it to you and a select group of people.

You can also limit the types of changes that can be made. You may even want to indicate that this is the last version of the document. If you know which Word tool to use, you can do all this and more.

You can use the most suitable restrictions by applying restrictions to your document in various ways. For example, if you don’t want anyone to change the formatting of the document, you can set formatting restrictions.

Making your document read-only allows it to be copied or read, but not modified. When you send a document for review, you can make it read-only if you don’t want reviewers to accidentally modify it. Restricting formatting and editing is another strategy.

Read-only mode, password protection, editing restrictions, and digital signatures are just some of the options available in the latest version of Microsoft Word to protect your documents. To let others know that the document has not changed since the last time you saved it, you can also mark it as final.

Restrict Editing feature in Microsoft Word

Restrict editing” is a feature in Microsoft Word that allows users to restrict document editing access and permissions. This feature is useful for protecting important information in documents from unwanted changes or unauthorized edits.

With the “Restrict editing” feature, users can restrict access to edit documents by assigning a password, allowing only certain people to edit documents, or limiting the types of changes that users can make, such as allowing only text or formatting revisions.

In addition, this feature also allows users to track changes made to documents and check the revision history.

The “Restrict editing” feature is particularly useful in business and educational environments, where documents often contain confidential or important information that needs to be protected from unwanted changes.

One example of the use of the “Restrict editing” feature that you can encounter is that used by the translator site DeepL. If you translate a document file, the translation provided by the site will be protected. You cannot edit or copy the translated file. If you click the “Stop Protection” button, you will be prompted to enter a password.

How to remove the “Restrict editing” password in Microsoft Word

If you’ve forgotten your password or you don’t know it, there are a few potential methods you can use to “unlock” a password-secured Word document. Some of the applications that are quite popular for doing the job are Passfab, Passper Word Password Remover, and GuaWord.

You can remove the password from “Restrict editing” which prohibits you from making changes and copying documents without using third-party applications. You only need to use Windows File Explorer. Follow the steps below to do so.

A. Displaying File Extensions in File Explorer.

You must display the file extension in File Explorer that will be used in the next step. To display file extensions in File Explorer Windows 11:

1. Click the “View” button on the File Explorer ribbon.
2. Then navigate to “Show > File name extensions“. Make sure there is a checkmark on its left. If there is no checkmark, click “File name extensions” to enable it.

B. Remove the “Restrict editing” password in Microsoft Word.

1. Open Windows 11 File Explorer.
2. Select the document file (docx) and right-click the file. Select the “Show more options > Rename” option. You can also use a keyboard shortcut by pressing the “F2” key.
3. Change the file extension from “docx” to “zip“. Click the Yes button in the confirmation dialog box.

4. Then double-click on the file you have converted into a zip file to view the contents inside.
5. Navigate to the “word” folder and delete the “settings.xml” file.

6. Go back to the zip file you modified in the previous step.
7. Change the file extension back from “zip” to “docx“.
8. Open the file and see the result. Now you can change the file as you need.