However, since Office 2007, Microsoft made huge improvements. Older versions of Office password protection (Office ) haven’t got the best reputation and were easy to crack with Google Docs or other easily available tools. There’s no need to pay for Pro Versions of Adobe Acrobat to do this, or use free, unsecure online PDF editing software… who knows where that data ends up! Microsoft Office has built in functionality to encrypt Office documents and PDF files, locking them behind a password. Password protection is useful, particularly if tied with file encryption that renders the file useless unless you have the password – just make it a strong one! but sometimes you want to lock down a specific file so that it’s secure no matter where it’s saved or sent to. There are a number of ways to ‘Share’ documents saved in Office 365 (OneDrive or SharePoint), some more secure than others…. Securing your documents is important, particularly when sharing them externally.
