Password Protecting and Encrypting Office 2013 documents including Word 2013, Excel 2013 and Powerpoint 2013 is a simple yet a very effective means of protecting sensitive data. Many people aren’t aware that Microsoft Office actually does a fantastic job encrypting your data if you use a strong password. If you use a weak password, well… don’t bother reading on.
The steps for password protecting and encrypting documents is exactly the same for Word 2013, Excel 2013 and Powerpoint 2013 so I will only demonstrate the process once using Word. If you run into a question or problems along the way, just drop a note in the comments and I’ll do what I can to help.
Password Protect and Encrypt Word 2013, Excel 2013 and Powerpoint 2013 documents
Click File.
Under the Info Tab, Click Protect Document.
There are several options available to protect your document however we want to just lock it down with Encryption.
Click Encrypt with Password.
Enter a strong password when prompted and click OK.
Word 2013 will ask you to confirm your password and when completed, you will be returned to the Info page showing the document is protected and requires a password to open.
If you need to decrypt the document, just repeat the process, remove the password when asked. Save it and you will be golden.
Password protection is great when it can’t be easily defeated, which is the case with documents created with Office 2010 and earlier products. Do you have any technical data on the password protection? Has it been enhanced for the new version?
Hi @jason — this is the main document I’ve used in the past regarding document encryption for Office 2010. It has not been updated yet to reflect the new Office 2013 yet however my guess is that documentation, when released will be very similar.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179125.aspx
In Office 2010, the default crypto was AES 128bit. I don’t know if that is still the default for 2010 but I would guess it is. Still waiting on that documentation.
Hi Steve
Thanks so much indeed for your simple and clear explanation about putting protection password and removing it from a document in Microsoft Word 2013. After I encrypted it I encountered some problems opening the file on another computer with older Wndows and older office 2007. Now I know how to decrypt it. You save my day.
yours, Jason
@Jason – yeah you bet. Anytime! Thanks for the note. I appreciate it. 9x out of 10 I never hear from those who benefit from the stuff I write so thanks!
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I want to remove the password in 2013 ppt ????
I created PPT documents using Office 2010 in compatibility mode and protected them with a password. I now have Office 2013 and cannot remove the password using the instructions in this blog. When I go to Info it does not show the document as being password protected, even though I still have to enter a password in order to open it. Can you help me out? Thank you.