so you've created your fantastic
document and now it's time to send it to
someone but the problem is you don't
want them to be able to edit the
document either the text or the
formatting or the layout you've got
three possible choices your first choice
of course is to simply print the
document but let's skip over that
quickly and look at how you can protect
your Microsoft Word document even though
it would remain as a digital file
somebody could read two choices then the
first option is to convert it to a PDF
file that used to be a little tricky and
often including third-party drivers and
stuff like that and but these days it's
extremely easy just go to the office
icon at the top left click that go down
to save as and you'll notice that in the
save as pop out option menu there you
have PDF so you can click on that save
it as a PDF file and and then of course
that is pretty well protected not
perfect but it's a good quick and
solution but there is a third
alternative and one that's probably the
best of all and that is to go up to the
review tab at the top and then across to
protect document now if you click on
that at the moment it'll have
unrestricted access and let's click on
restrict formatting and editing in this
pop-out sidebar you'll have editing
restrictions and you can change that
from the tracked changes to no changes
at no changes read-only don't worry
about these other options I'll skip over
that but probably come to it in a later
video when I'm looking at creating
editable forms in documents but for the
moment we're just going to lock down the
entire document so just make sure
that you've selected no changes read
only and then click this button down
here yes start enforcing protection
you'll be asked for a password now make
a note of this and obviously don't make
it so anything too obvious turn guesses
as to what this is there we up so enter
the password and and then click ok so
this document is now protected and if
you save this document as a Microsoft
Word document people will be able to
open it and view it but they will be
completely unable to make any changes to
it so if I right now try to select that
and delete it nothing's happening if I
click there and start typing again
nothing if I try to select text and go
up to the formatting but you see again
it's all completely locked out I can't
make any changes so that's how to be
able to send a Microsoft Word document
to somebody that is protected useful if
it happens to something like a contract
or terms of use or something of that
nature of course there is also the
possibility that you yourself might want
to be able to make changes to it at some
future stage so how do you unlock it
very simple again go up to the review
tab at the top and across to protect
document and again click on this
restrict formatting and editing at the
bottom you'll now have this stop
protection button click on that and
it'll ask you for your password
hopefully you'll remember it so you
enter that and you're back to where you
were it's now unlocked I can close this
side panel and you can see that I can
delete I can format and I
can edit no problem at all so that's how
to quickly and easily protect any
Microsoft Word document