Digital Living Group

In his April 2019 talk on the Cloud, Paul mentioned that you should password protect Word and Excel documents if they contain confidential information. This page tells you how to do this.

There are plenty of reasons why you would want to password protect a Word document. Whether you are handling confidential documents, sharing your computer with family members, or you simply don’t want any alterations to be made to the file by accident. This is why protecting a document with a password can be one of best ways to make sure its integrity remains intact.

Office 2007 and later versions uses strong encryption.  Be warned that earlier versions used weaker encryption systems and are not considered secure.

The following step-by-step instructional provide the details:

Windows

1. Open the Word or Excel document that you wish to protect

2. Click on the 'File' menu

3. Select Info (Word and Excel diverge at this point because you can protect the whole or just parts of an Excel workbook).

4. In both cases chose a strong password. Please don't lose it or you won't be able to open the document again! 

Mac

Office for Mac works generally in the same way,  but with a slightly different views:

1. Select Tools > Protect Document / Protection (Protect Workbook)

2. Again enter a strong password and make a note of it in a safe place. 

And that's it! You simply need to enter the password the next time you need to re-open the document,