Word files showing incorrect password dialog box even when I have entered the correct password

Question

I saved four word files and encrypted them with the same password. Then I remembered that I have to export them to PDF format also.

I opened them again and saved them as PDF (pressing F12) through MS Word. A dialogue box popped up which informed that it will cause the file (don't know word file/ pdf file) to lose password protection. I said okay and proceeded further with the export.

The documents got exported to PDF. When I tried closing the Word documents, a dialog box popped up asking if I wanted to save the changes. Note that I had made NO changes to the files except exporting them as PDF. Still I clicked on the "save" button and then the files closed.

After this, when I tried opening the four Word files again, they won't open! I typed the same password I used to open them before but Word shows incorrect password. I have no idea what happened but I am assuming that exporting a password protected word file caused this error.

This is a major bug @Microsoft. Please see to this. All the documents were very important to me.

Answer 1

Hi, Dr. Rachana Khandelwal

It sounds less like Word changed the password and more like the files may have been damaged when they were saved/closed. A good quick check is to create a new Word file, protect it with that same password, and see if it opens normally, because that helps tell whether the issue is the files themselves.

Here are some suggestions you can try:

Open Word first, then go to File > Open > Browse, select a copy of the file, click the arrow next to Open, and choose Open and Repair. This is usually recommended for files that may be corrupted.

If that fails, try Word’s Recover Text option from File > Open, with file format conversion enabled. It can sometimes pull out the text even when the document will not open normally.

If these protected files fail only on this one PC, it is suggested that you test them on another computer or Word for the web, because sometimes password-protected files fail on one machine but open elsewhere.

You can also try opening a copy in Google Docs or uploading to OneDrive and opening online, since a different parser can sometimes get past minor corruption and let you rescue the content.

If all protected Word files are acting strangely, run an Office Online Repair.

Thank you for your patience in reading, I hope this information has been helpful to you.

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Answer 2

Exporting a password-protected Word document to PDF does not change the password on the original Word file, and the provided context contains no documented issue where Save/Export to PDF corrupts or resets a Word document’s password.

From the available information, there is no supported method in Word or Microsoft 365 to recover or bypass a lost or invalid password on an encrypted Word document. If Word reports that the password is incorrect, the file cannot be opened or decrypted using built-in Microsoft tools.

The only supported options are:

1. Verify the password being entered
   • Confirm keyboard layout and language.
   • Check Caps Lock / Num Lock.
   • Try any close variants of the password that might have been used.
2. Use any unprotected copies or backups
   • Restore from File History, OneDrive/SharePoint version history, or other backup solutions if those were in use.
   • Use any earlier versions of the files that were not encrypted or that still open with the known password.
3. Avoid third-party password-cracking tools
   • Microsoft does not support or endorse tools that attempt to break or bypass document encryption.

If no backup or earlier version exists and the password that previously worked is now rejected, the encrypted content cannot be recovered using supported Microsoft methods.

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References:

• Save to PDF and Export to PDF crash in Word 2016 and Excel 2016
• Save or convert to PDF or XPS in Office Desktop apps