Hi Carol!
16 characters could be the reason. The Word 2007 GUI has a bug. Some dialogs *) accept only 15 characters **), as was the norm in earlier versions. This means, only the first 15 characters got accepted as password, but the password input dialog for opening the document accepts all 16 characters. So, try entering just the first 15 characters and you should be fine. If luck holds out.
Michael
*) It's the dialog you get when using the Save > General Options to set the password. The one from Prepare > Encrypt document works just fine.
**) I reproduced this just now. And the funny thing is, it's only during the first time you set a password on the document that only the first 15 characters are accepted. After successfully opening the password-protected document, you can set a password with more than 15 characters just fine. /shudders/ This bug is truly nasty.
