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I have forgotten my password for a Word document that I created. Can you help?

Password Protecting Word Documents

Microsoft Word offers two terrific ways to protect your documents from unapproved edits or prying eyes, the Protect Documents feature and the Encrypt Document feature. Using Protect Documents, you can restrict editing to specific users or limit the types of editing that other users can apply. Encrypting the document and applying a password to it makes the document un-openable unless the appropriate password is entered.

The Problem with Password Protected Documents

In either case, forgetting the password leads to major hassles as you’ve just discovered. Without the password, you cannot open your encrypted document or make changes to your protected one. You are at the mercy of your memory and with so many password requirements in our lives, it’s understandable that a few are forgotten along the way.

In addition to forgetting personal passwords to Word documents that you created, many business owners have a different problem: password protected documents created by employees. What happens when an employee leaves the company or dies unexpectedly? All of those password-protected documents belong to the employer, yet the passwords have left with the former employee.

How to Open Password Protected Word Documents

Fortunately, the computer software industry has come up with a solution: Office Password Recovery Software. This product recovers passwords from any Microsoft Office application including Word, Excel, and Access. Download the free scanner and see if the product detects your Bio Data Word document file. The download takes just seconds to download and install using a broadband connection. Once installed, either let the Office Password Recovery tool search your documents or manually add your encrypted documents.

As a trial version, limitations do apply. For example, all passwords are recovered, but only those of three characters or less are viewable. In order to view the full passwords, you will need to purchase the full featured product. If you suspect the password is a short, three characters or less password, then the free scan will help. However, if it is longer, you will need to pay for the software. Depending on how valuable the Bio Data file is to you, the product may be worth the price.   

In Microsoft Word I copy and paste a lot. My margins are set at .375. A lot of stuff I copy is only 2.5″ wide. Can I reformat to fill up the page margin to margin instead of stopping halfway and starting a new line?

Copying and Pasting Text in Word

Microsoft Word has a few different options for how it handles copied text. Most Word users know about using “Control + C” to copy text and “Control + V” to paste it. However, you can also use the Paste Special command (File > Edit > Paste Special in Word 2003 or click the Paste clipboard icon in the Home tab of Word 2007 and choose Paste Special) to choose how you want the text to be pasted into the document.

For example, if you are copying and pasting text from a Web site, not only are you copying the text, but also any underlying HTML code which could be affecting the margins. Instead, try using the Paste Special command and choose “unformatted text.”

Adjusting Word Options

You can also adjust how Word handles the formatting of pasted text by going into Word Options and clicking on the Advanced option. Here, you’ll find options for keeping the source formatting or matching the destination document’s formatting for:

• Pasting within the same document
• Pasting between documents
• Pasting between documents with style conflicts
• Pasting from other programs

Using Word’s Ruler

You can also adjust the way text displays on the page using the ruler across the top of the page. The ruler takes some getting used to. However, if you hover your mouse over the space that represents the margin (usually where the color changes from white to blue) and wait until your cursor turns into a double sided arrow, you can drag the margin to the desired width.

Source Formatting

It is also possible that the source text has hard breaks within the text in which case, these breaks have been created by pressing the enter key. For example, the original writer may have used the enter key to purposely break up the text, such as when typing a poem:

Roses are red

Violets are blue

I want the text in four lines

Rather than one or two

You can use Find and Replace to remove the paragraph breaks made by pressing the enter key. First, if you want to see the hard breaks, press the button on your Word toolbar that looks like this: ¶ (similar to a backwards P). In order to remove all of these instances of paragraph breaks, click the Control + F key combination and enter ^p in the Find What box. Now, click on the Replace tab and put an empty space in the Replace box and then click Replace or Replace All. You may want to select paragraphs at a time so that you don’t end up with one huge block of text with no paragraphs.

This process isn’t perfect. In our poetry example, you’ll notice problems with capitalization and punctuation as shown below:

Roses are red Violets are blue I want the text in four lines Rather than one or two

Microsoft MVP has more tips on the MVP FAQ page.

I need help with Microsoft Word. Do you know where I can get telephone support? I have a book typed in Word and I need to put a ~ after every period. Is there any way to populate this without typing in everyone?

Help Using Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is a complex word processor with tons of useful features - if you know how to use them. In this case, it’s not necessary to try to call Microsoft for help as you have found Filetonic.com and we’re always eager to do our best to lend a helping hand. I’m not sure why an editor would want a “~” mark after every period and I can see how tedious that would be to do manually, even in a relatively short document - let alone a book. However, we can accommodate this request fairly easily using Microsoft’s Find and Replace feature.

Using Word’s Find and Replace Feature

The Find and Replace feature is most often used to find certain words and replace them with new words. For example, let’s say that you wrote a book and your main character was named “Ralph.” Later, you decide that you’d rather Ralph have a different name, such as Benny. Rather than going through and replacing each instance of “Ralph” with “Benny” (and possibly missing a few), you can use the Find and Replace feature to find “Ralph” and replace it with “Benny.”

Word can also search your document for every single period (.) and replace each one with a tilde (~) mark. To do this, hit the Control key plus the ‘F’ key. I remember this by thinking ‘F’ for “Find.” A box appears. Enter a period mark in the box that says “Find what” and then click the “Replace” tab. Now, enter a tilde mark in the box that says “Replace with.” When you’re ready, click either the Replace button or the Replace All button. You can do it one period at a time by clicking the Replace button followed by Find Next, but that’s going to be quite tedious.

Problems with Find and Replace

Before you click on Replace All, keep in mind that this will replace all periods, not just the ones that end a sentence. For example, if your text contains a Web site address such as Filetonic.com, the period will be replaced and you’ll end up with “Filetonic~com.” You can avoid problems like this by including a space after the both punctuation marks when you enter them in the Find and Replace dialog boxes. That way, when Word finds a period followed by a blank space, it will replace the period and the blank space with a tilde and a blank space. When Word finds a period followed by a letter, it will ignore it.

Exploring Word

I hope this little trick helps make your job easier. Word is a powerful tool with tons of timesavers. Explore Word’s built-in Help files or check out Microsoft Office Online for tutorials and tips. Microsoft even offers a free self-paced training course covering Word 2007.

Microsoft home/student trial was installed on my computer when I got it. I have purchased Office Pro and need to know if I need to uninstall the trial version before installing it. If so, what all do I need to uninstall?

Uninstall or Convert

Microsoft Office trial versions have a convert feature that allows you to convert the trial to the commercial version by entering the purchased product key. This is convenient as uninstalling and reinstalling are not necessary. However, the conversion is version specific. In your case, you will need to uninstall the Home/Student trial version of Microsoft Office because it is a different version than the Office Professional version. If you were converting to the Home/Student version of Office, all you’d need to do is enter your product key information.

Uninstalling the Office Trial Version

Microsoft recommends uninstalling the trial version prior to installing the full product. Uninstalling the trial version is relatively simple and painless. To do so, go to the Control Panel and use the Add and Remove Programs tool to remove it. If you have Windows Vista, go to the Control Panel and use the Programs and Features (which is the same utility as Add and Remove Programs with a new name) tool to remove it.

Once you’re in Add and Remove Programs, click Change or Remove Programs and then scroll through the list in search of Microsoft Office. Keep in mind that the label for Microsoft Office might not say “trial version.” Highlight the program and uninstall it.

In Programs and Features, the steps are slightly different. You’ll find Microsoft Office in the list first and then click the Uninstall/Change button.

Reboot and Install

While it’s not necessary to reboot, starting with a freshly booted computer for a major installation is smart. Close any running programs that may have preloaded with the reboot to minimize any potential interference and then install Microsoft Office Pro.

Activate Office

Once installed, you’ll be prompted to enter your product key. In addition, you will need to activate your copy of Office Pro. An Activation Wizard will walk you through this process. You can activate your copy over the Internet or by calling Microsoft. While you do not need to activate your copy immediately, you will eventually need to do so or else the software will go into limited functionality mode so you might as well take the time now to do it.

I have a new laptop with Vista. It included a trial version of MS Office 2007. I want to remove this so I can install my Office 2003. Problem is that the 2007 does not appear in Control Panel Programs & Features - How do I remove it? Any advice welcomed!

Vista does support Microsoft Office 2003, so once you’ve uninstalled Office 2007, you should have no trouble using it. That said, it is definitely a good idea to uninstall the trial version before you install Office 2003 - there are lots of sob stories on the web about people who have trouble trying to install 2003 over the Office 2007 trial.

Look for Uninstaller

You say that it does not appear in Programs and Features - I want you to try one more thing before we get down to the nitty gritty. Go to Start. In the Search Box type: uninstall. Look through the list of uninstall programs to see if you can find an “uninstall Microsoft Office 2007″ uninstaller in the list. If so, double-click and follow the prompts.

Check Programs and Features

If not, let’s try Programs and Features once again, just in case. Once again, use the Search box as a handy shortcut. This time, type: programs and features. Click on the icon for Programs and Features. Let the system load this screen completely. It sometimes takes a while for all programs to populate this list. In addition, make sure that you haven’t previously “filtered” the results. For example, if you click on the right portion of any category such as Name, Publisher, Installed On, or Size, a submenu appears allowing you to filter or sort the results. If you have the list filtered, then you could be inadvertently hiding the Office trial version.

Uninstall Office Steps

Do you see anything with Office 2007 in the subject? If so, then click Uninstall/Change. If you don’t see anything with Microsoft Office 2007, then you need to get into the registry and do some adjustments there. While this is not a difficult process, it is rather long and complicated with registry changes that you have to make exactly. Click on the link to Microsoft support for uninstalling Office 2007 in registry, as the steps are too intricate to list here.

This process requires that you log in to the system as an administrator - if this is your personal computer you will likely be set up as the administrator. This is a multistep process where you will remove any Windows Installer Packages, stop the Office Source Engine, remove the Installation folders and files and then remove the registry subkeys.

As always, if you are going in to edit the registry, make sure you know what you’re doing. Any changes that you make to the registry can affect the whole system. Also make sure that you have your data backed up before you try to work through this process. After you’ve completed the uninstall, you should be able to restart your computer and then install your version of Microsoft Office 2003. If you get an error message while you are trying to install Office 2003, temporarily disable your spyware and malware programs while you are installing and you should be able to install it with no more problems.

I’m guessing that your computer came with a trial version of Microsoft Office pre-installed or that you downloaded a trial version of the software. All was probably fine up until the trial period expired. And now here you are unable to use the software. A couple of other possibilities exist, too which I’ll discuss as well.

Microsoft Office Trial Versions

Microsoft, like many software developers, offers trial versions of its software so that potential customers can try it out before they buy. If this is what happened to you, then it’s time to make a decision. Do you like the product enough to buy it? If so, the answer is simple, purchase the product and “unlock” the software. If not, it’s time to find an alternative.

What Happens when the Trial Expires?

Trial versions from Microsoft typically last 60 days. When the end comes near, reminders are supposed to pop up on your screen, notifying you that the software will expire soon and asking you if you want to convert to the full featured product. If you allow the software to expire, then the software goes into reduced functionality mode. In other words, it stops working as it should and you are blocked from creating new documents and editing existing ones.

Unlocking the Trial Version

If you decide to buy the full featured product, you can do so without having to uninstall/reinstall the software. Simply go to Microsoft Office Online and purchase a “perpetual” Office product key. Go into Word, click the Office button, click Word Options, click Resources, and then click Activate. Follow the prompts and enter the product key.

It’s easier to convert to the full featured product during the actual trial period. In this case, when reminded that the software is about to expire, simply click on Convert and follow the prompts. You’ll be taken online where you can purchase the product key.

More details are listed in Microsoft’s FAQs about trial versions.

Unactivated Microsoft Products

Another possibility is that you have purchased the product but failed to activate it. When the software isn’t activated within a specific time period, it reverts to reduced functionality mode as described above. This mode makes the software act like a viewer. When this happens, you can’t create new documents or edit existing ones. All you can do is view them. If this is the case, you must activate the software. Activation is a process where your computer connects to the Microsoft servers so that your product key can be verified as legitimate. To activate the software, go into Microsoft Word, click the Office button, click Word Options, click Resources, and click Activate.

Word Viewer

Another possibility that comes to mind is that your computer may have the Word Viewer rather than the full version of Microsoft Word. If you have the Viewer, then you cannot enter text by design as it is a viewer program only.

Alternatives to Microsoft Word

If you find yourself in the position where you must purchase Word in order to begin using it, you may be wondering if any free or less costly alternatives exist. Yes, they do! Check out this article discussing alternatives to Microsoft Office.