Tuesday, November 3, 2009

How to Protect Documents with Passwords!

Dear Clients,

As you might be aware, the internet is not a safe place. There are all sorts of people out there who can intercept and read messages sent over the internet. That includes also important documents, which you intend to send as email attachment.

The big question is: Can a document be protected by password so that no one except the intended addressee can open it? The answer is Yes!

Microsoft Office suite of programs, (i.e. Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Powerpoint, and others), which are widely used the world over, offer several ways of doing exactly that. The most common way is to protect the whole file by passwords.

There is a possibility of having two different passwords: One protecting against "opening" the document and another protecting against "modifying" the document. Protection against opening the document will prevent anyone receiving it without authority not to be able to open it. The file will be inaccessible. However, protection against modifying the file will allow the recipient to open and read it but will bar him/her from modifying it.

Here are the steps:
1. In order to protect the file with password, you first must create it or open it if it had already been created;
2. Then go to "File" menu; then "Save As …" to open the Save As dialog box;
3. Click "Tools" menu of the Save As dialog box; then "General Options";
You can now see several options including the two options for password protection.

Please note down the password and store it in a safe place since you might need it later. Always remember that the longer the password the better, as it becomes more difficult to guess. Six characters minimum mixture of alphabets and numbers is highly recommended.

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