If you want to restrict access to confidential Office documents(Word, Excel, Powerpoint), you can do so by using the in built password feature. This feature can be used as follows.
- Open the Excel document
- Click on File menu(In latest Office versions, File menu is invisible. You can click on top left corner to open the file menu.)
- Click on Prepare and then click on Encrypt Document
- Now enter the password. You will need to type in the password twice.
- Click on OK button. That’s all. Now onwards whenever you open the document, you will be prompted to enter the password, then only the file contents will be displayed.
If you have Windows EFS feature on your system, you can enable file encryption to restrict unauthorized access to the documents. You need not use the above described password feature. If the Windows edition does not support EFS then the above feature will be useful to you. Or even if you are emailing the document to someone, it’s better to set password and then convey the password to the recipients through another channel. This would prevent unauthorized access even if your file is received by unintended persons.