Hi,
I understand that there are tools like Advanced Office Password Recovery for Office document and other tools for PDF files. But these tools need to be registered or purchased. Are there any free tools which can also do the job?
Thanks!
You can have a look at our free edition of OSForensics.
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Note that the free edition of the software is single threaded (thus a bit slow). Paid for software is multi-threaded.
Note that if the document is from a new version of Office then it can be a slow process to crack the password. As a comparison, with a classic Zip file you might get 12 million password guesses / second. But with Office 2007/2010 you might get only 600 password guesses / second. So brute force on a complex password isn't possible unless you want to grow old waiting for it to finish (or have a lot of hardware). What is possible and often effective is a dictionary attack.
In my opinion, if you need a fast tool you should use an online service. You also need to consider that the file will be uploaded to a server.