Protect Your Microsoft Word Documents

Sometimes we may want to share a document with others, but not want the information in that document disseminated outside of the group with which it was originally shared. If you are using Microsoft Word 2013 you can protect your document to prevent it from being edited (it can’t be copied or changed); and you can prevent it from being opened and read without the proper password.

The first step in protecting your document is to restrict editing of the document. Once you have written your document and have a final version that you want to share with others; follow the steps below to restrict editing.

Restrict Editing of Your Document
>Click<

• File Tab at the top-left of the screen.
• Select "Info".
• Protect Document
• Restrict Editing (On the Menu on the right side of the document)
• Editing Restrictions (Allow only this type of editing in the document)
• Choose "Filling In Forms"
• Click on "Yes, Start Enforcing Protection"
• Enter a password to restrict editing.

When you restrict editing of your document, it may be opened and read, but it cannot be changed and you will not be able to copy and paste from this restricted document into another document. You will be asked to create a password to restrict editing of the document. Keep this password to yourself, and only you will be able to make changes to your document.

After you have restricted editing of your document, you next want to password protect it so that it can only be opened by people you want to read it (i.e. people who have the password to the document). To password protect your document follow the steps below.

Password Protect Your Document
>Click<

• File Tab at the top-left of the screen.
• Select "Info"
• Protect Document
• Encrypt with Password
• Enter your password to encrypt the document.

When someone attempts to open a password protected document, a pop-up appears asking for the password. If the correct password is provided the document opens normally, if an incorrect password or no password is provided the document remains closed and encrypted.

To share this document, post it where authorized users can access it or e-mail it to the people that you want to have it. In order to read this document the recipients will need a password to open it. You can provide this password in advance, or send it by a separate channel, such as SMS / Text message.

Of course, you only provide the password to open the document. Keep the "restrict editing" password to yourself to ensure that people do not change your document, or copy and paste information from it to other sources.