Many times we need our documents to be protected. It is mainly because of the security reason for which we need to install some added security features to our documents. Microsoft allows us to protect our MS Word file by using few simple security features. With the help of this guide, you can easily discover the tricks to make your MS Word document a password protected one.
To do this, first you open Microsoft Word Document. In this guide, we have used Microsoft Office 2007, which is quite different from Microsoft Office XP version. To open Microsoft Word, you go to Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Word. Look at the following picture.
You can open a new document for protection or else, you may also open an existing word document for the purpose of protection.
Here we are taking this file as an example.
Now take a closer look at this file. Click on Review tab, you will find on the top of the menu bar.
After clicking the review tab, you look at the top-right portion of menu bar. Look at the following picture to have a clear view.
Now click on Protect Document. You will get the following list.
At present, this document does not have any restriction, so Unrestricted Access pane is checked. It is the default setting. Now as you would like to make a restricted access, you need to click on Restrict Formatting and Editing tab.
When you click on it, it will open a new Restrict Formatting and Editing pane at the right side of the window.
Check “Allow only this type of editing in the document:”. Select the drop-down menu now and select Tracked Changes option. Now click on Yes, Start Enforcing Protection button. You do not need to worry. Even if you apply the protection settings, you can easily turn them off later if you do not want to keep your document protected any longer.
As soon as you click on the Yes, Start Enforcing Protection button, a pop-up window will appear.
You have to type and re-type a password. Once you have done with it, you will find your document as password protected and it will look like as follows.
In this type of password protection, you will be allowed to edit the area, but all the editing will be tracked. So, virtually when you protect your document this way, the user is unable to modify the actual document unless he knows the password and makes the document again an unprotected one.
Available with previous versions ?
Thank you for info Amit..I tried it.
A nicely detailed tutorial, however if using MS Word 2007, one can also try and save the document as PDF (however he won’t be able to allow limited editing) to make it protected from editing.
@Make Money, yeah, the option is available in previous versions also. The option is very useful if writing a professional report which is to be reviewed by a senior or used for a team project.
I am using MS Word 93 and need to know if securing only a portion of the document is possible. I have built a form in word and want people to have access to complete the form. Does anyone know how to do this if it can be done? Thanks.
thats a pretty helpful topic,I did the same thing to secure my word file but some how my friend was able to break throught my password and viewed some of my really important notes,so now I am using Folder Lock to secure my personal documents and files.
I created a password but now how to remove it bcoz enable to do editing
unable*
Microsoft Word and Excel do not provide strong encryption. Use file encryption programs instead and good encryption algorithms like AES-256bit or Blowfish.
Word’s encrypted document will be broken in a couple minutes.
I think this options is not available in Microsoft Office Word 2003? Is it available?