A Microsoft Word document can be used to store a wide range and types of information, some of that information can be sensitive or secretive, thus, needs to be protected. So, it is crucial to learn How to Password Protect a Word Document? Protect a Word Document with password is important not only to share sensitive data with someone who has the necessary authorization to access that information. It is also useful to keep sensitive information safe locally on your computer.
If you reached this far to gather information about, how you can password-protect a Word Document? There is a good chance that you are interested or involved in some form of Business and Freelance activities. Learning this essential skill is crucial if you want to create and share Letterhead Templates in Microsoft Word, Invoices, Legal Documents, and other sensitive documents.
How do I Password Protect a Word Document?
There are two ways you can Encrypt a Word Document. One of them can be used to restrict edits to the contents of the document using a password. Meaning, this type of password protection is applied to restrict edits to the document structure. The second type of password protection is used for a slightly different use case. In this blog post, we will be discussing this type of document encryption that will ask for a password at the time of opening. This means the document requires a password every time someone tries to open it to authorize access.
I will use Word from Microsoft 365 Office Suite for this post. You can perform Word Document Encryption by following these easy steps.
Create a Word Document
First, create your Word document or open an existing Word document make changes, or paste your copied sensitive information here.
A quick tip if you need to insert a dummy text in your Word document. In Word, to fill your document with dummy text type this formula, “=rand(3,2)”. Through this formula, you can control how many paragraphs & how many lines each paragraph can have. In the above formula, 3 is the number of paragraphs, & 2 is the number of lines in each paragraph.
You can also use this formula without specifying paragraphs & the number of lines, simply use “=rand()”. Using this formula will automatically fill the space with random text.
Encrypt with Password
When you finish making changes to your document, and it meets all the necessary criteria. It’s time to apply encryption to the Word Document.
On the ribbon on top. Go to File > Info > Protect Document > Encrypt with Password.
Once you click on the “Encrypt with Password” option, a popup will appear asking you for the password that you want to set for this document.
An important thing to consider here is that this password is non-recoverable. So, make sure to keep it safe once set. I want to suggest you, use a strong and memorable password that is not easy to guess, otherwise, it kills the purpose of encryption.
Now press OK to commit the password to your Word document. Close & re-open the document, if you did all the steps correctly, it should ask you for the password to open the encrypted document and reveal the information inside.
This encryption is only valid for Microsoft Word native file format which is DOCX. It will not translate to any derivative or exported file formats from DOCX.
Once opened you can make changes & modify anything like a regular Word document, just save on closing.
How to Remove Encryption from Word Document?
If for some reason you want to remove the Encryption and Password from this Word Document. Open the document by providing the password you just set. Once you successfully open the document, trace back the steps you took during the encryption setup process. On the ribbon on top. Go to File > Info > Protect Document > Encrypt with Password.
On this popup window just remove the hidden password & then press OK, don’t forget to save the document afterward. This is how you can remove passwords or encryption from a Word document.