Protect Your Document in Microsoft Word

Contributed by risherz November 11, 2005  
Tagged: Microsoft Word

Make sure that no one changes your precious work in Word.

Protect Document is a very helpful tool to help you keep your file the way you left it.

To enable Protect Document:

1. Click on Tools in the menu bar
2. Then click on Protect Document…
3. Then a window will pop-up asking you what you want to protect your document for.
-The Tracked Changes option allows you to track every single change that was made. It changes the colour of the text to red and gets underlined if you make any changes
-The Comments options only allows the user to put in comments. (To insert a comment go to Insert>Comment and to view a comment go to View>Comments)
-The Forms option only allows you to edit forms in the document. You can’t edit anything else
4. To choose your option just click on the choice that you want.
5. If you want a password then type in a password in the “Password (optional):” text box. (Word will ask you the password when you want to unlock your document!)
6. Click on OK
7. If you didn’t choose a password then Word will now protect your document. If you did then another box will pop up asking you to Confirm your password. Then click on OK.

Your document is now safe and protected!

If you want to unlock it then

1. Click on Tools
2. Then click on Unprotect Document
3. If you have a password then type it in the box that appears

Note: Word will protect your document until you Unprotect it. And the password is for one time use, the next time you click on protect document you need to type the password again.