How to set the Password on Microsoft Word Document File

Microsoft Office Word is a Word Processor which is designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name of Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Its several other platforms include IBM PC's running DOS, Apple Machintosh, AT&T Unix PC, SCO Unix, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows. It is one of the components of Microsoft Office Software Systems. The current versions are Microsoft Office Word 2010 for Windows and Microsoft Office Word 2011 for Mac. Microsoft Word’s file formats are denoted either by a .doc or .docx files extension natively.

As we all know that MS Word documents contain sensitive user's information that needs to be password-protected in order to get away with various security threats and ensure data protection. Hackers either in your organization or out of the workplace can get an access to the private and confidential data by cracking these Word passwords very easily. Accordingly, it becomes essential to set strong and reliable passwords to the important MS Word files. MS-Word allows the easy encryption of the word document files. Hence it also allows the user to set the password according to their choice as “password to open” or “password to modify” or both.

So, you have two choices to set the password on word document file. Here are some steps to set the password

1. Set Password to open the document

• If you want to prevent unauthorized users from opening your documents at all, you can assign password to open.
  
• To assign a password to your document choose Options on the Tools menu and then click on the Save tab.
  
  
  
  
• If you want to open a protected document the following dialog box appears:
  
  
  
• Those users who don't know the password cannot open your document.
  

2. Password to modify the document

• To assign the modified password in your document choose Options on the Tools menu and then click on the Save tab.
  
   
• By applying Password to modify, you can allow others to open the document in read only mode. Only authorized users can do changes into document file. You can assign a password for modify the document. If you try to open word document which is protected with password to modify then the following dialog box will appear:

• Now, you have to enter the password and open your document or open your document in read-only mode.

So, these are the two types of passwords (password to open and password to modify) which you can use to make your word document file protected. You should always make a habit of using or creating a strong password which you can easily remember because if you loss password then Word file will become inaccessible for you. In that case you need to use Word Password Recovery software to regain access of your valuable and critical file.