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How to Convert a Password Protected PDF File to Word Document

Cynthia Huff
Cynthia Huff

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Usually, we need to do the PDF to Word conversion. Normally it's easy to do with Adobe Acrobat. However, sometimes you may encounter the situation where you're trying to convert a PDF file to Word document but Adobe says it cannot convert it because it's password protected.

In this case, only after you remove password protection from the PDF file to make it unprotected, can you convert it to Word with Adobe Acrobat. Now here we just show how to convert a password protected PDF file to Word document, even if you don't the password or have forgotten it.

How to convert a password protected PDF file to Word document


Part 1: Remove password protection from PDF file

If you know the password, remove it when you set it in Adobe. If you don't know the password or have forgotten it, you can firstly use the specialized software PDF Password Refixer to find the password, then remove it in Adobe.

Step 1: Download and install PDF Password Refixer on the computer. And launch the software.

Step 2: Click on the Open button, navigate to the path to the password protected PDF file, and add it into the software.

Step 3: Choose one right attack type and settings. To make a better choice, you can know more about Dictionary and Mask attack password recovery.

Select password attack type

Step 4: After password attack type selected, click on the Start button. It will start to discover password from the protected PDF file, and password will be recovered soon.

Recover PDF password

Step 5: Note down the password, and then use it to open the protected PDF file in Adobe Acrobat. On the Adobe Acrobat menu bar, click on the File -> Properties. In the "Document Properties" dialog, select the "Security" tab, choose "No Security", and save the PDF document so that you can remove document "Open" password from PDF.

Remove password protection from PDF

Part 2: Convert password protected PDF file to Word document.

Once the password is removed from PDF file, the file is not protected any more. You can convert it to Word in Adobe Acrobat.

Step 1: Open the PDF file in Adobe Acrobat Pro.

Step 2: Click on the File menu, select the Save As submenu. Then choose Microsoft Word -> Word document or Word 97-2003 Document, just depending on which version of Word document you want to convert your PDF file to.

Step 3: Choose a path to save the Word document.

Tips: As Adobe Acrobat cannot convert a PDF file that's password protected to Word document, in addition to the method above, you also can use some third-party converter instead of Adobe Acrobat to convert a password protected PDF file to Word document online.