Today we will consider the question: How to put a password on a documentWordAndExcel? This is the third article in a series in which we talk about the protection of personal information. In the first article we talked about: How to put a password on a folder? Then they touched on the question: How to set a password on a computer? Today we will look at the following question: How to set a password for any document in Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher?
Know about how to put a password on documents, is especially important when you have to use the same computer with your colleagues at work. I want to please you, in products Microsoft Office, document protection function is provided. Let's look at how this is done:
— For those who use Microsoft Office 2003 you need:
Open Word document, Excel and PowerPoint, after which you need to go to the “Tools” section and select “Options” from the submenu:
After the “Settings” window opens, go to the “Security” tab, and in the line "Encryption settings for of this document» Enter your password:
Next, click on the button "Additionally", which is located next to the password entry field. A window will open "Encryption type" in which select any type of encryption with a key strength of 128.
Click on the “OK” button, and then re-enter the password to confirm.
That's all, now in order to open your document you need to enter a password.
— For those who use Microsoft Office 2007 you need:
Open a Word, Excel and PowerPoint document, and then open the main menu of the program. Then go to the "Prepare" section and select "Encrypt document":
That's all, now your document is password protected; when you open it, the program asks you to enter the password:
— For those who use Microsoft Office 2010 you need:
Open a Word, Excel and PowerPoint document, then open the “File” section and select the “Information” element. Then in the “Permissions” line, select the method of protecting the document, namely the item "Encrypt with password":
After opening the window "Document encryption" enter the password and confirm it by re-entering it, then click on “OK”
Close the document saving the changes. That's it, the document is password protected.
If you want to protect your Microsoft document Office 2010 Word and Excel from editing or changes, you can do this by going to the "Review" tab and in the "Protect" group select "Limit Editing":
After which a window will open "Limit Formatting", in which you can choose the editing method. Choose the method that suits you and click on the button “Yes, turn on protection”.
So we figured out the question of how to put a password on a Word and Excel document?
Good luck to you and see you again on the blog pages
Want to set or remove a password in an Excel file, but don't know how? Need to remove protection, but forgot your password? Or are you just interested in the nuances of hacking security in Excel?
The answers to these questions, practice and a little theory are below in this short article.
Want to go faster? Watch the 2 minute video. No extra words:
Setting an open password in Excel
There are two ways to set a password in Excel. They are not obvious to everyone, but they are expectedly simple.
See for yourself.
Method 1. When the document is finished...
- go to the tab File
- select menu Information
- click
- and select
In the window that appears, enter your password and confirm it to avoid typing errors.
Easy, simple and reliable!
You have just protected the file from opening - you have encrypted its entire contents with a password. This most reliable way protection, which is the most difficult to hack.
Valuable advice - don't lose your password!
Also via menu Intelligence You can also install other password protection - on the book and document pages. But keep in mind: protection of workbooks, pages, VBA macros is unreliable in all versions of Excel. Such protection is hacked instantly.
Method 2. The second method of setting a password is even simpler than the first.
Saving the document as usual (File - Save as)...
- in the dialog box, click the button Tools
- and select the menu item General Options
In the new window, enter your password and confirm it is correct by re-entering it.
Here you can set not only a password for opening a file, but also a password for writing changes (yes, it is also always hacked instantly).
Removing a Password in Excel
When password protection of a file is of no use, you can remove the password from the document and not worry about losing it.
The procedure for removing a password from Excel is similar to setting one.
Open the document and through the tab File...
- call the password entry window (menu Information
- click the button Protect Workbook
- select item Encrypt with Password
- just erase the password and click OK
The document saved after this will no longer have password protection.
Password recovery for Excel
Everything is easy and simple when the password is known. But what to do if the password is lost and important data is inaccessible?
The answer depends on the type of protection and the version of Excel in which the document was created.
There are three options:
Excel password recovery. Weak protection
Excel has different security options for different purposes. Passwords for some of them are found or deleted instantly, regardless of the complexity of the passwords themselves and the version of Excel.
Excel passwords that you can instantly find or remove:
- change record password
- page protection password
- workbook password
- VBA macro password
- opening password for Excel 6-95
There is a whole class of programs for recovering Excel passwords. It is difficult to single out any one of them - they all cope equally well with simple protection in Excel.
Excel 97-2003 password recovery. Reliable protection with a secret
Reliable protection in Excel documents of all versions (except for the ancient Excel 6-95) is a password for opening: the entire contents of the file are completely encrypted and without a password the document cannot even be opened.
Well, since the password is lost, we’ll look for the password, right?
No, that's not true! There is a secret.
In fact, it is not the password that encrypts the file, but encryption key- a special value that is obtained from tricky password transformations. You enter your password, Excel converts it into an encryption key and tries to decrypt the file. If the password is correct, then you gain access to the data. If the password is incorrect, the encryption key will be incorrect and the data will remain inaccessible.
It turns out that to open an encrypted Excel file, you can look for the password, or you can look for the encryption key.
And here is the secret - for Excel 97-2003 you need to look for the encryption key!
And that's why...
IN different versions Excel uses different algorithms for converting a password into a key to calculate the key. The key has a strictly defined length, which does not depend either on the complexity of the password or on its length.
In Excel 97-2003, the encryption key is fatally short - only 40 bits.
It takes a modern computer a day or two to try all 2 40 possible key values and find the right one.
If there is a key, there will be no password!
There are not many programs that can do this. One of them is Accent OFFICE Password Recovery (in it this option is called “Search for a key”).
A couple of days to find the key is great, but how about a couple of minutes?
With the help of so-called rainbow tables this is possible!
Speaking in simple language,a rainbow table is a multi-gigabyte database that stores,precalculated values for key verification. Searching the rainbow table for a control value takes A couple of minutes. The Excel document can then be instantly decrypted.
Neither the length of the password nor its complexity matters at all. A couple of minutes and that’s it - no password!
Rainbow tables are used by some manufacturers of password recovery software and in online services that decrypt any Excel file uploaded to them.
VerniDostup.ru is an example of such a service
Excel 2007-2013 password recovery. Perfectly reliable protection
The jokes and secrets ended with the advent of Excel 2007. Since then, the level of protection has been growing, and the rate of password cracking is decreasing with every new version Excel.
The length of the encryption key has increased to 128/256 bits and it can no longer be found (it is simply impossible to sort through many options of 2,128 or 2,256). For the same reason, there are no rainbow tables for Excel 2007-2013.
All that remains is to act head-on - go through possible password options. In sequence.
And then they came to the rescue - video cards.
As it turned out, their powers are suitable not only for ultra-realistic computer games, but also for many other tasks.
That's right, and to recover Excel 2007-2013 passwords too.
The speed of searching passwords on just one video card can increase tenfold, that is, your waiting time will decrease tenfold.
Of course great! Connect one or two or all video cards to the password search and reduce your waiting time.
But please note: not all Excel 2007-2013 password recovery programs work on video cards. And those that use them do not always do it at high speed. You'll have to search, test, choose...
Instead of a total
To summarize, we can say: if you want to truly protect your data, use an opening password in Excel 2007-2013 documents and never lose it.
Now you can install strong password in two ways and you know what to do if he does get lost.
Check yourself or what I traded my time for
You have gained useful practical knowledge. You learned:
- set passwords in Excel 2007-2010-2013 documents in two ways
- remove password to open from Excel 2007-2013 files in a couple of clicks
You also gained a lot of theoretical knowledge that will help you right now or in the future. You learned:
- that Excel has a range of password protections that always hacks instantly
- what for closed Excel password 97-2003 need to look for the encryption key, not the password
- what to decrypt Excel documents 97-2003 there are online services
- What to find the password for opening Excel 2007-2013 documents need to use video cards
- What are the main criteria when looking for a program to recover Excel 2007-2013 password - support for video cards and password brute force speed
Sometimes you need to make sure that no one else gets access to a document. This can be quite difficult to do if several people use the same device. This article will describe how to install protection on files using standard means, as well as how to remove protection if the user no longer needs it.
Setting a password in Office 2003
In the 2003 office, to install protection on Word and Excel, you need to go to service menu, and then proceed to options. On the security tab, you can set protection that will allow other people to view the file and a code that will allow you to edit the document.
After this all that remains is apply changes and the file will become protected from viewing and editing.
Password protection in office 2007
Here you have to go to main menu, which is launched when you click on the round button on the left top corner. Here in the section " Prepare", there will be an item "", you need to click on it to open the settings window. 
Next, you need to enter a set of characters, which will become the cipher. You can delete it by going to the file, entering the security sequence, and then you need to go to again this setting. After which, instead of the cipher, you will need to enter an empty combination, i.e. do not enter anything.
Setting a password on Word and Excel 2010, 2013, 2016
To encrypt data, you will need to go to Main menu, go to the details section, and then select document protection and encrypt with password.
In the next menu you need to enter the encryption combination. 
To remove the protection, you will need to go into the file, go to the same settings item, and leave the security combination empty.
This standard encryption method will protect the user’s data from viewing and editing; only those people to whom the user gives the combination will be able to access it. It’s not so easy to crack them; there are no built-in tools for resetting the cipher, all that remains are ordinary brute-force programs, but they require a lot of resources and can work for a very long time. This is especially noticeable if the cipher consists of large quantity signs and is compiled according to all the rules, and does not represent any one word.
However, this is why the user himself needs to be more careful with passwords. If an important document is encrypted, then the combination should be one that the user will definitely not forget, because it will be very difficult to select it.
The password that protects an Excel workbook (at the file level) controls access in two ways: it allows the user to sign in, and it allows the user to save changes. Before we discuss Excel's password protection feature, let's be clear on what we mean by protection.
Although the terms "security" and "protection" are usually used interchangeably, functionally in Excel, they are not the same thing. Security allows you to choose who can access your data. Security restricts users to only viewing and not making changes. Security is access, protection is maintaining integrity.
To assign a password to an Excel file, follow these steps:
Step 3. In the dialog box that appears, you can set two passwords: one to open the workbook and one to edit the workbook. Extra options allow you to set encryption options for added security.
Step 4. Enter one or both passwords and click OK.
Step 5. Confirm each password and click OK.
On a note! to open the book is self-explanatory. If the user does not know the password, he or she cannot open the file. Remember that this password only holds users back. A user who knows this password has access to all data and can change the data once.
By assigning a second password, you can allow users to open the workbook and view data, but not allow users to actually modify the workbook. A user who knows this password can view and change data and save changes to the workbook.
A user who does not know the password can view the data, but it is read-only. This user can still change the data, but a password-protected workbook will prevent the user from saving the changes. This user simply cannot save changes to the protected workbook. However, the user can enter a new name and create a new workbook.
Video - Password Protecting a Microsoft Excel File
Security at the sheet level
You can protect not only the entire file or book, but also individual sheets of the document. This is just as easy to do, look at the screenshots below.
Step 1. In the Review section, select the level of protection you require.
Step 2. Enter your password, selecting the type of protection you require.
Click on the "OK" button. From this moment on, the document or its components will be safe; no one will be able to edit them. This doesn't mean other people won't be able to access them.
Password encryption
Beyond protection Microsoft Excel allows you to encrypt a file using a separate password. This process will be irreversible if you forget your password. In this case, you will never be able to access them. Keep your password in a place inaccessible to others and don't forget it.
Setting an external password on an Excel file
In addition to the internal password, you can set up additional protection using special programs for hiding, password protection and encryption. Most of them are free and very easy to use. The table below shows the most popular programs, which help protect your Excel files.
| Encryption method | Description |
|---|---|
| Creating an encrypted archive | Windows XP allows you to create password-protected ZIP files. On Windows 7 you can download free third party program file compression. It's better to use the completely free and open source 7-Zip. Create a new file adding all sensitive files and set a password. All files will be encrypted |
| Encryption with TrueCrypt | Create a container that will store and protect files on your hard drive. No one will be able to access the contents of the folder without a password |
| FolderGuard | Powerful computer security software. It can be used to control access to files to other system resources. You can use FGuard to protect your personal documents and folders with passwords so that others cannot view or change them. You can password-protect any folder on your computer, allowing only authorized users to view protected files |
Video - Protecting Cells and Sheets in Microsoft Excel
On a note
Before you start password-protecting all your books, there are three important things to keep in mind:
- Anyone who has a password to change a workbook can also remove the password protection! Use this particular option wisely.
- Regular users can use a password cracking program. Yours best protection The trick to preventing this type of forgery (or theft) is to assign a very long password of random characters. This will not protect against hacking by specialized software 100%, but it will slow it down. This delay may cause a potential attacker to put off working on it.
- If you have forgotten your password and cannot log into your book and make changes, you can purchase software to crack passwords.
Excel password protection is a great feature, and fortunately, it's easy to implement. Don't confuse protection and security, don't rely only on the internal password. There are many in various ways encryption provided by third party software.
From time to time during work there is a need to set or remove a password for an Excel file. In this article we will look at how this can be done in different versions Excel.
If you need to set a password in Excel, you can do this in a special dialog box. The location of this window differs in different versions of Excel.
The password must be set after all changes to the file before saving it. To do this you need to go to the section Service → Options
This will open the options dialog box Excel workbooks, you need to select a tab Safety where you can enter either password to open the file Excel, or password to change it in the appropriate field
After entering the password, you must click OK, and a window will open in which you need to confirm the password you entered. This is necessary so that you can be sure that you entered the password correctly the first time and remember it. The changes will take effect after saving the file.
You can set or remove a password in Excel using the method discussed below.
Set or remove password in Excel 2007 and 2010
Setting a password in Excel 2010 is slightly different from 2003, and now we will look at how this can be done. You can set a password immediately before saving the file. To do this, select the dialog box to save the file: File → Save As
After this, a window will open where you need to select the item Service → Common parameters
