Protecting Documents from Being Opened or Modified

You might want to require a password to enable people to open and/or modify your document (or template). For example, there may be a group of people that you want to be able to open and read your document, and within that group , a few people that you want to be able to actually modify the document. If you require a password to open your document, Word encrypts the file and decrypts it only when the user enters the correct password. If you require a password to modify your document, anyone can open and edit your document, but they can't overwrite the original document with their revised version. Instead, they are required to save the edited document under a different name and/or location. Only users who enter the correct password can overwrite the original with a modified version. You can use just one of these types of passwords on a document or use them both together.

To protect your document from being opened and/or modified, follow these steps:

1. With the document onscreen, choose File, Save As .

2. Click the Tools button at the top of the Save As dialog box, and click Security Options .

3. In the Security dialog box (see Figure 18.13), type a password in the Password to Open and/or Password to Modify text box. Passwords can be up to 15 characters long, and they are case sensitive. If you are requiring a password to open the document, you can select among a range of encryption types. To do so, click the Advanced button. If you aren't sure what type of encryption to use, check with your system administrator.

   Figure 18.13. Type a password up to 15 characters long in the Password to Open and/or Password to Modify text box.

   

   

   You can display the same security settings by choosing Tools, Options and clicking the Security tab. It doesn't matter which route you take to get to these settings; both methods will apply the settings to the current document only.

   
   

4. Click OK .

5. Retype the password in the Confirm Password dialog box, and click OK again to return to the Save As dialog box. If you entered passwords for both opening and modifying the document, you will see two Confirm Password dialog boxes. Enter the password for opening the file in the first dialog box and the password for modifying the file in the second.

6. Finish saving the document.

If you required a password to open the document, the next time you issue the command to open the document, the Password dialog box shown in Figure 18.14 appears.

Figure 18.14. Type the password and click OK to open the document.

If you required a password to modify the document, you will see the dialog box shown in Figure 18.15. (If you required both types of passwords, Word will only display the dialog box for modifying the document if you entered a correct password for opening the document.)

Figure 18.15. Type the password and click OK to modify the document.

If you know the password to modify the document, you can enter it and click OK. Otherwise, you have to click the Read Only button to open the document. When you open a document as a read-only file, the label [Read-Only] appears in the title bar to remind you that if you revise the document, you will have to save the edited document under a new name.

The Read-Only Recommended check box in the Security dialog box gives you the lightest level of protection. If you mark it, Word suggests that the user open the document as a read-only file, but doesn't require him/her to do so. If you don't need a high level of protection and just want to give a user the option of opening the document as a read-only file, use this technique.