The open file password for my Word 2000 document has 8 digits and a letter at the end. Can it help remove the lost password?

You bet it can! You know the password structure and simply must use an attack with an extended mask, not just a brute force attack.

The mask for your case is: ?d*d?s

The program will now substitute digits for all positions of the password being generated, except for the last one, where letters will be used instead.

It will take the program a couple of minutes to find the password.

Remove lost word password with extended mask
Setting an extended mask for a password up to 8 characters long in Passcovery programs

This hold true for all passwords (Excel-PDF-RAR-ZIP-TrueCrypt), not just passwords for Word documents.

More dissected examples of using Advanced (Positional) Mask in Passcovery programs can be found here.

Attention! If you are dealing with a Word 97-2003 document (with a 40-bit encryption key), you don't even need to break the password. AccessBack.com will help you decrypt the document in minutes regardless of the complexity of the password.