If you find yourself with a Microsoft Word document that is read-only password protected and you don't know the password, there is a work around to remove the protection, and allow you to edit the document again. Note that this only works on documents that you can open but can’t edit.

First open the document, and save it as a Rich Text Format (RTF) file. Close the file and then reopen it again in word. Go to the Tools menu and select Unprotect Document, and now the password is no longer required. Finally save the file as a word document again.