Maybe you had this problem in the past, perhaps you google a solution now. You got a locked .docx file, it is read-only and you need to edit it. The Internet gives you many solutions, for example, buy an app that can remove this protection. But here is a free simple way how to do it – without buying an app or uploading your sensitive file to any server.
Just open your file in Word. Then save it like XML. Now open this XML file in a plain text editor and search form parameter enforcement. The code will look something like this:
<w:documentProtection w:edit="forms" w:enforcement="1" w:cryptProviderType="rsaAES"…
Set the parameter enforcement to 0, save and exit.
<w:documentProtection w:edit="forms" w:enforcement="0" w:cryptProviderType="rsaAES"…
Open the modified XML file in Word and use Save As → Word Document (*.docx).
Now you have a doc file you can edit as you like.
