So I am currently doing some I.T. work for a client, and they recently fired an office manager for embezzlement. My initial investigation into her computer revealed that she password protects several of her Word documents. Some are regular ".doc" and others are newer ".docx" files. Regardless, we have tried all documented passwords, but to no avail.

I have come across several pieces of software that claim to be able to "recover" the passwords, but they all cost a little bit of money. I also watched a few YouTube videos, but had no luck using their tactics.

The password on the Word file is preventing the document from opening. It appears to be a bit harder to recover than the "modify" passwords that are commonly used on documents.

If anyone has any tips or strategies on how to recover/crack the password to these Word files, please let me know. Otherwise, let me know what paid piece of software worked the best and I will just end up using that. I just want to try to use free methods first, before turning to the paid software. ;D

Thanks.