Unprotect an Excel file programmatically

Question

We’re getting an Excel file from a client that has open protection and Write Reserve protection turned on. I want to remove the protection so I can open the Excel file with the python xlrd module. I’ve installed the pywin32 package to access the Excel file through COM, and I can open it with my program supplying the two passwords, save, and close the file with no errors. I’m using Unprotect commands as described in MSDN network, and they’re not failing, but they’re also not removing the protection. The saved file still requires two passwords to open it after my program is done. Here’s what I have so far:

import os, sys
impdir = "\\xxx.x.xx.x\allshare\IT\NewBusiness\Python_Dev\import\"
sys.path.append(impdir)
from UsefulFunctions import *
import win32com.client

wkgdir = pjoin(nbShare, 'NorthLake\_testing')
filename = getFilename(wkgdir, '*Collections*.xls*')
xcl = win32com.client.Dispatch('Excel.Application')
xcl.visible = True
pw_str = raw_input("Enter password: ")
try:
    wb = xcl.workbooks.open(filename, 0, False, None, pw_str, pw_str)
except Exception as e:
    print "Error:", str(e)
    sys.exit()
wb.Unprotect(pw_str)
wb.UnprotectSharing(pw_str)
wb.Save()
xcl.Quit()

Can anyone provide me the correct syntax for unprotect commands that will work?

Asked By: JimR

||

Source

Answer 1

The suggestion from @Tim Williams worked. (Use SaveAs and pass empty strings for the Password and WriteResPassword parameters.) I used ‘None’ for the ‘format’ parameter after filename, and I used a new filename to keep Excel from prompting me asking if OK to overwrite the existing file. I also found that I did not need the wb.Unprotect and wb.UnprotectSharing calls using this approach.

Answered By: JimR

Answer 2

This post helped me a lot. I thought I would post what I used for my solution in case it may help someone else. Just Unprotect, DisaplyAlerts=False, and Save. Made it easy for me and the file is overwritten with a usable unprotected file.

import os, sys
import win32com.client

def unprotect_xlsx(filename):
    xcl = win32com.client.Dispatch('Excel.Application')
    pw_str = '12345'
    wb = xcl.workbooks.open(filename)
    wb.Unprotect(pw_str)
    wb.UnprotectSharing(pw_str)
    xcl.DisplayAlerts = False
    wb.Save()
    xcl.Quit()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    filename = 'test.xlsx'
    unprotect_xlsx(filename)

Answered By: Colin

Answer 3

This function works for me

def Remove_password_xlsx(filename, pw_str):
    xcl = win32com.client.Dispatch("Excel.Application")
    wb = xcl.Workbooks.Open(filename, False, False, None, pw_str)
    xcl.DisplayAlerts = False
    wb.SaveAs(filename, None, '', '')
    xcl.Quit()

Answered By: Enoch Sit

Answer 4

if you are on MacOS (or maybe Linux? not tested)

You have to install Microsoft Excel and xlwings

pip install xlwings

Then run this:

import pandas as pd
import xlwings as xw

def _process(filename):
  wb = xw.Book(filename)
  sheet = wb.sheets[0]
  df = sheet.used_range.options(pd.DataFrame, index=False, header=True).value
  wb.close()
  return df

Resources:

Adapted from this script:
https://davidhamann.de/2018/02/21/read-password-protected-excel-files-into-pandas-dataframe/
xlwings documentation: https://docs.xlwings.org/en/stable/api.html

Answered By: Daniel Hasegan

Answer 5

you can unprotect excel file sheets with python openpyxl module without knowing the password:

from openpyxl import load_workbook
sample = load_workbook(filename="sample.xlsx")
for sheet in sample: sheet.protection.disable()
sample.save(filename="sample.xlsx")
sample.close()

where parameter "filename" is the path of your excel file which in here i have used local dir path.

Answered By: Alireza Heidary

Answer 6

Hey I tried the solution provided by @Enoch Sit

def Remove_password_xlsx(filename, pw_str):
    xcl = win32com.client.Dispatch("Excel.Application")
    wb = xcl.Workbooks.Open(filename, False, False, None, pw_str)
    xcl.DisplayAlerts = False
    wb.SaveAs(filename, None, '', '')
    xcl.Quit()

but got the error NameError: name ‘pw_str’ is not defined

:'(

Answered By: Lamsouille

Unprotect an Excel file programmatically

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