How to password protect an Excel file
Want to password protect an Excel file that’s full of your financial information? Here’s how to password protect an Excel file using Excel’s in-built encryption:
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With Excel open, click File, then Info.
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Click Protect Workbook, then Encrypt with Password.
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Enter your password and click OK.
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Enter your password again and click OK. Make sure it’s something you’ll never forget, or record it somewhere safe.
How to password protect a PDF file
If you have a subscription to the paid version of Adobe Acrobat, you can use the app to quickly and easily password protect PDFs with the following steps:
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Click Tools. Then click Protect. You may have to click See More first.
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Click Encrypt, then Encrypt with Password.
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Choose Require a Password to Open the Document and enter your password.
You can also password protect a PDF file for free on Adobe’s website. But if you’re not comfortable uploading a sensitive PDF to a third-party server to password protect it, you can still lock the file in Windows as outlined above.
How to password protect a Word document
Microsoft Word also comes with its own embedded document encryption tool. Here’s how to password protect a Word document:
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With the Word document open, click File and Info.
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Click the Protect Document button.
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Click Encrypt with Password.
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Enter your chosen password and click OK.
It can be helpful to encrypt a Word file from within Word itself for increased protection. Just know that if you share the file with someone, they’ll need the password to open it.
You can also learn how to password protect a zip file; simply make an archive by highlighting the files you want to zip, right click them all, and click Add to archive… There will be an option to add a password. You can also make it a rar file, and opening that rar file will still require a password.