Encrypting Office Documents. From inside the document, navigate to File > Info > Protect Document > Encrypt with Password. Choose a strong password and enter it. Encrypting Office 2008 and 2011 Documents (Mac) From inside the document, navigate to Word > Preferences.
I have had an important Word document open constantly on my MacBook Pro for editing for the last couple of weeks (no reboots). This morning I closed Word. When I tried to reopen my document, I was surprised to find Word asking for a password. I did not set up encryption on this document (have never used password protection on any of my documents). All other Word files were unaffected including one that I had been editing in parallel for the last week or so.
I could still create and save new, unencrypted documents. I finally succeeded in decrypting my file with a cloud-based Office encryption-removal service, to the tune of $20. While I have my file back, I would feel even better if I knew how the document came to be mysteriously encrypted in the first place. Doesn't seem like a virus (1: it's a Mac; 2: only one file compromised?) It also doesn't seem likely that I could have accidentally encrypted the file myself with a few stray keystrokes. The only thing I can think of is that I upgraded to Office 2011 14.3.9 right about when the document got encrypted (I can identify the timeframe from my series of Time Machine backups). Is the Office update possibly related?
Have other users had similar problems? Is there a way to disable document-opening password protection in my Office installation so this doesn't happen again? Needless to say, I won't be upgrading to Office 2013 until I know what's going on, since it has even stronger encryption. Thanks for input!
Create an Encrypted Archive Windows XP allowed you to create password-protected ZIP files, but Windows 7 doesn’t. That’s fine — you can download a free third-party file compression program that will handle this for you. There are many file-compression programs you could use, but we recommend the completely free and open-source.
After installing 7-Zip, use it to create a new archive — either via the 7-Zip option in your Windows Explorer right-click menu or the Add button in the 7-Zip application. You’ll be able to specify a password for your archive — be sure you leave AES-256 selected as the encryption type. Any files and folders you add to your.zip file (or whatever other type of archive you choose to create) will be encrypted with your selected password.
You’ll need to enter your password when you open your archive file in the future. Encrypt an Office Document Microsoft Office allows you to apply encryption to documents, securing them with a password.
Microsoft switched to AES encryption in Office 2007, so if you’re using an earlier version of Office, the encryption will be nowhere near as secure. To password protect a document in Office 2010 or later, click the File menu, click the Protect Document button in the Info section, and select Encrypt With Password. You’ll be prompted to enter a password, which you’ll have to provide each time you open the document in the future.
You can also fully decrypt the document in the future, removing the need for a password. RELATED: for more information on encrypting Word documents, Excel workbooks, PowerPoint presentations, and even PDFs. Other productivity programs may offer similar features.
For example, Adobe Acrobat allows you to create password-protected PDF files, if Office’s PDF encryption isn’t your style. Create Encrypted Volumes With TrueCrypt allows you to create encrypted volumes. TrueCrypt is a very flexible encryption solution, and you can use it in a variety of ways:. You’ll need your encryption password to “mount” this file as a special drive, allowing you to view and manipulate its contents. When you “unmount” the drive, no one can see its contents without providing your encryption passphrase. or other removable drive, allowing you to carry sensitive files around with you worrying that they could be viewed if you ever lose the drive. TrueCrypt can be used as a portable application, allowing you to access your encrypted data even on computers that don’t have TrueCrypt installed — the TrueCrypt program files can be stored on the external drive itself., forcing anyone to enter a password when booting your computer or resuming from hibernate.
This ensures that no one can access the contents of your hard drive as long as you leave your computer locked or powered off. (Unless they, which is uncommon in the real world.) Use Built-In Windows Encryption Features If you’re using a Professional or Enterprise edition of Windows, you also have access to some special encryption features.
Home versions of Windows — and the standard edition of Windows 8, which technically isn’t named a “home” version — don’t have access to these features. Professional editions of Windows include the following two encryption features:., which allows you to create encrypted volumes on drives, including. BitLocker functions in much the same way as TrueCrypt, so you can use a similar feature on the more common editions of Windows., which allows you to encrypt individual folders and files.
To use this feature, right-click a file or folder, select Properties, and click the Advanced button on the General tab. Enable the Encrypt contents to secure data option — this will be grayed out if you’re not using the correct edition of Windows. Files are essentially encrypted with your Windows user account password, so you’ll lose them if you forget your Windows password.
Bear in mind that these files are only encrypted when stored on your hard drive, so you can’t email them securely without encrypting them in a different way. There are many other tools that can be used to encrypt files, but the above methods are some of the easiest and most powerful. If you just want to hide files from other people using your computer, you could try hiding them or, but this doesn’t prevent anyone who knows how to view system files from finding them. You could also. If you want to store passwords, you can encrypt them with — both allow you to attach files, although this works best with small files associated with password entries.