For those using LibreOffice productivity suite, this brief tutorial is going to show you how to password-protect documents created with LibreOffice Suite. When a document is password-protected, authorized users won’t be able to open, read or modify it. This is a great way to make sure confidential information is kept private. Because LibreOffice uses a very strong encryption algorithm, forcing your way or bypassing a password-protecting document is almost impossible. The document owner who loses the password will also be denied access. It’s that secured. The owner may never be able to open that document again.

Password protecting documents

To get started with protecting your documents in LibreOffice, open an existing document or create a new one. Then when you’re done editing it, go to File –> Save As from the top menu of the program. Then on the Save As dialog box, check the box that says “Save with password” This will allow you to enter a password to protect the document. Next, type and confirm a password that will open the document. It is important that you remember this password, as there’s no possible way to open it without the password. LibreOffice tries to warn you that: You also have the option of protecting the content by only allowing read-only permissions. Users will be able to read the content but can’t change it. To protect the document content, click Options on the screen below the password fields. Then select Open file read-only This will allow the reader to only view the file content and not make changes. If the user wants to make changes, he/she will be prompted again to provide a password to edit the document. When a content-protected document is opened, it opens in read-only mode with an edit button at the top. To edit it, click the Edit Document button and supply the correct password. That’s it! This will allow you to keep confidential information private. Enjoy!