Most of our document files often contain confidential information and they are supposed to be secured from unauthorized access.
Some of us store personal information in a Word file and we may not want others to intrude in our privacy.

MS Office has this ability to protect your document files from unauthorized editing.
But most of us are still unaware of this extremely useful feature of Ms Office 2007.

There are actually two ways to protect your files.
1. Make it read only, so that the reader will only be able to read it & unable to edit it.
2. Make it password protected, so the reader has to enter the password in order to open it.

To secure your files, here’s the procedure.

All popular products of Ms Office 2007 has this Password Protection feature.
So here I’m explaining Ms Word, Ms Excel and MS PowerPoint.

MS WORD 2007

1. Mark as final

First and easy step is to Mark your files as “Final”.

This is the lowest level of protection of your documents files.
In which No password is required to protect the files.

Document can be viewed without entering any password.

This feature is to show that the document is finished and requires no further editing.
But if any of your co-worker/colleague feels that still something’s missing he can disable the “Mark as Final” and edit the file.

To Mark your document as “Final”:

1. Click the Office button.
2. Place your cursor over “Prepare”
3. From the sub menu, click “Mark as Final”.

MS WORD 2007 will alert you that “This document will be marked as Final and then saved”
Click OK and save the file where you want.

Document “Marked as Final” cannot be edited. All the buttons and tabs are disabled.

Documents Marked as Final will have a small stamp icon in the left bottom of the Word Window

If you want to edit this type of document, simply click Office button>Prepare and click (already pressed) “Mark as Final” button.

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2. Password protection to Editing

This is an intermediate level of protection.
In which password is required to make changes in the document.

Document can still be viewed without entering password.

To password protect your files from editing.

1. Click Office Button
2. Click Save or Save As.
3. Click Small Tools Buttons at bottom left, from the menu select “General Options”.

4. Click “Protect Document” button.

5. A Task Panel (in right side) will pop up in the document behind.
6. Click Cancel to hide this “Save As” dialogue box.
7. Now in the task Panel, check the “Allow only this of editing in the document”

By default, “No changes (Read Only)” is selected, leave it as it is.

8. Click “Yes Start Enforcing Protection” button at the bottom.

9. Enter the desired password.

10. Save the document and close.

Now entering that password will allow you to make changes in the documents.

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3. Password protection to Open

This can be considered as highest level of protection offered by Ms Office 2007.
In which password is required to open the file.

Document can’t be viewed without entering the password.

To Password Protect your files to open:

1. Click Office button.
2. Click Save or Save As.
3. Click small “Tools” button, select General Options.

4. Now enter the desired password in “Password to Open” text box.
Re enter it.

5. Save and Close the file.

Now only that password can open the file to view or edit.

You can choose both “Password protection to Open”, and “Password Protection to editing” at the same time at same file.

MS Excel 2007

Mark as Final is not available in Excel 2007
Only Simple Password protection can be applied.

To protect Excel Sheets, repeat the same steps:

1. Click Office Button.
2. Save or Save As.
3. Tools button> General Options.
4. Enter password to “Open” or “Modify”.

5. Save and Close Excel.

MS Power Point 2007

Again Only password protection is available to protect modification and opening.
– No “Mark as Final”

To Protect presentations:

1. Click Office Button
2. Save or Save As.
3. Tools>General Options.

4. Enter desired password to either for modification or opening protection.

Re enter password to confirm.
5. Save and Exit.

The only drawback is that your documents can still be deleted even they are password-protected. So frustrated person who has been guessing the
password to open the document can still delete it.

So you must consider for backing up your files some where else.

Or if you want more security then give “Lock Folder XP” a try to protect your files.