To secure the contents of your file, you must password-protect your documents. You can share the password with a selective group of people required to access the file. In this post, we will share how you can encrypt, or password protect Microsoft Office and PDF Documents.
How to Encrypt or Password Protect Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Documents
Microsoft Office tools can be easily password protected within Windows itself. But there are several ways to password-protect a PDF using various tools, such as Adobe Acrobat, I Love PDF, Soda, etc. These tools let you encrypt an existing PDF. S, let us see how to go about it.
- Password Protect Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) Documents
- Password Protect Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Documents
You can encrypt or password-protect Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat PDF documents using the respective methods.
1] Password Protect Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) Documents
Password Protection feature is common for most Microsoft Office applications. Here we are using Microsoft Office Word, but the same applies to Excel, PowerPoint, and others.
- Open the Office document you wish to protect
- Click on the File tab. In the Info tab, click on the Protect Document drop-down menu. Click on the Encrypt with Password option.
- Enter the password you wish to use to protect the document. Re-enter the password when prompted and click OK.
- You will get a message asking you to save the document. If you click Save, the document will get password-protected. If you click Don’t Save, a recent copy of the document will be available, enabling you to access it temporarily.
Note: If you forget the password, you cannot open the document without the correct password.
- Your document will ask for a password the next time you open it.
2] How to Password Protect Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Documents
You must get a Pro subscription to use the Adobe Acrobat app to password-protect PDF files. That is a lot for those who only want to protect data. Instead, you can password-protect any existing Adobe Acrobat PDF document using these two third-party tools given below:
I Love PDF
- Open the I Love PDF website and click the Select PDF file button on the screen.
- Select the desired PDF file and click Open. You will be prompted to set a password for your PDF file to protect it. Set the PDF file password and click the Protect PDF button.
- Click on the Download protected PDFs button to download the password-protected PDF file.
- After you download the file, go to the file destination, open the PDF file, and you will be asked for the password to open it safely.
Soda
- Open Soda and click on the CHOOSE FILE button. Choose the required PDF file and click Open.
- Enter a password to protect your file on the next page and click the Protect button.
- Click on the DOWNLOAD FILE button to download the password-protected PDF file. You can navigate to the downloaded PDF file and open it. It will ask for your password to view the file’s contents.
Remember not to upload sensitive data to these websites; if you want professional services, it is always better to upload PDFs containing such content into paid PDF solutions.
Conclusion
Securing essential documents using a password might help in ensuring their protection. You can easily password-protect Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint without any difficulties.
The same outcome can also be achieved by using third-party applications. Also, remember to use only trustworthy applications if the documents are too sensitive.
