How to add password to document?
Document security is concerned with major two aspects – protection against unauthorized access and protection against accidental modification.
Being able to restrict the access (opening or retrieving content inside document) is protection against unauthorized access. This is the document security measure you apply to allow only to the the permitted people to open and use document.
Another type of security management is protection against accident modification. In this scheme, you will allow anybody to open and view the document or print the document but will restrict editing or modifying it.
Microsoft Word has ‘Password to Open’ and ‘Password to Modify’ options for these two types of document protection.
Apart from these two security management, Microsoft Word supports limited access too! You can configure some actions to permit and some others to restrict. For example, it is possible to restrict formatting only or limit the editing only.
Today, in this post, we are discussing about restricting unauthorized access and modification.
How can I set password so that nobody can open my document?
First of all, make sure nobody does not mean you! In fact it is only who are provided password will be able to open the file and all others will be unable.
Follow the procedure below to set a password to a document:
Microsoft Word 2003
Step 1. From Tools Menu Choose Options
Step 2. Select Security tab
(Note: You can get this dialog box through File >> Save As >> Tools >> Security Options too!)
Step 3. Enter a password in ‘Password to Open’ text box
Step 4. Click OK.
Step 5. You will be prompted to reenter the password. Type same password once again to confirm and click OK.
Great! You’ve added a password. Don’t forget to save your document after you’ve added a password. Otherwise, the password won’t be saved.
How to restrict a document from editing?
Step 1. Open Options dialog box and front the View tab.
Step 2. Enter a password in ‘Password to modify’ text box.
Step 3. Click OK. You’ll be prompted to enter the password again to confirm. Enter same password once again and click OK.
Don’t forget to save the document!
How to set password in Word 2007
In case of Microsoft Word 2007, The options dialog box is redesigned and you can’t find it as in Word 2003. And an interesting fact is that, the password to open and password to modify are removed from ‘Word Options’. So, there is only one place from where you can set passwords in Word 2007 document.
Follow the procedures below:
Step 1. From ‘Office’ button choose ‘Save As’ to open Save As dialog box.
Step 2. On the Save As dialog box click tools and choose General Options.
Step 3. You’ll get ‘General Options’ dialog box. Enter the passwords as you would do in Word 2003.
I lost the password, can I recover lost word password?
Seems unusual, but it happens. Especially if the passwords of important documents are not recorded, its very natural, you won’t be able to open them because you no longer remember.
The good thing (I should say – the bad thing) is that the passwords from Word Documents can be recovered by using some special tools. You can get some good programs that can read your document and retrieve password.
We’ll be talking about how to recover lost password in coming posts. For now, it suffices to know that you can get tools to retrieve back the lost passwords.
Review Questions
1. Why you need to set password in important word documents?
2. What are the three security features in MS Word to protect your document?
3. You wish to publish document freely but don’t want it get modified. What option you’ll apply?
4. What do you mean by unauthorized access to document?
5. What option in MS Word you’ll apply to make your document impossible to open without a password?
6. Do you think it is good to be able to recover passwords from documents?
7. Why do you need to enter a password two times when setting up?
8. What are the different ways you can access the Security options in MS Word?
9. What are the things to consider to set strong password?
10. Is it compulsory to set a password to enable ‘read-only recommended’ check box?
Practical Questions
1. Download Practical Questions and Practice Yourself. (One question set is solved)
2. Open an existing document and set the option so that when anybody opens it, he/she is reminded to open it as read only mode.
3. Open an existing document and set the options in such a way so that:
a. Anybody can open the file for viewing and printing
b. User must supply password if he wishes to make changes on the file content.
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