How can you protect a document in Word?

Applying password protection to a document in Word is an effective way to safeguard its content from unauthorized access. When you password-protect a document, users must enter the correct password to open the document or make any changes, ensuring that sensitive information remains confidential. This level of security is particularly important for documents that contain personal data, proprietary information, or any content that should not be exposed to the public or unauthorized individuals.

Other methods of document protection, such as setting editing restrictions, converting to PDF format, or enabling read-only mode, provide different forms of security but do not completely prevent access like password protection does. While editing restrictions can limit what changes users can make, they allow access to the document itself without requiring a password. Similarly, converting a document to PDF can help preserve the formatting and reduce editability, but it does not inherently protect against unauthorized viewing or copying. Enabling read-only mode allows the document to be viewed but not edited, which provides minimal security in scenarios where viewing should be restricted.