Implement Read-Only Protection

Encryption provides effective protection for your important documents, but other documents may need a lesser degree of protection. Word's weakest form of protection is read-only protection, which you can set to recommend to your colleagues that they open a document in a read-only format so that they can't save changes to the original document.

When you implement read-only protection, Word displays a message box like that shown next when someone goes to open the document. You can see the weakness: The user can simply click the No button to open the document with full editing privileges.

To implement read-only protection, follow these steps:

1. Click the Office button, and then click Save As. Word displays the Save As dialog box.
2. Click the Tools button (to the left of the Save button), and then choose General Options from the pop-up menu. Word displays the General Options dialog box.
3. Select the Read-Only Recommended check box.
4. Click the OK button. Word closes the General Options dialog box, returning you to the Save As dialog box.
5. Click the Save button. Word closes the Save As dialog box and saves the document.

When you open a document in read-only mode, Word displays "(Read-Only)" in the title bar to remind you. You can make changes freely-but you can't save them to the original document. Instead, click the Office Button, click Save As, and then specify a different filename or folder.

Don't rely on read-only protection to keep unwanted changes out of your documents. Always back up such documents so that you can quickly recover from unwanted changes.