How To Password Protect PowerPoint

When we say PowerPoint presentation, we normally think of presenting our slides in front of a room full of people. But what if you only want a select few to have access to your file?

What if you’re presenting sensitive information to, say for example, a high-value client or your company’s board of directors, and you want to keep your presentation safe from prying eyes?

The best way to secure your super-secret or private PowerPoint file is by password protecting it. This means that only you, and the people you share the password with, will have access to the file.

This is precisely what you’re going to learn in this article today – you’re going to learn not just how to password protect your PowerPoint, but also to delete the password when you no longer need to protect your file. Let’s begin!

How To Password Protect PowerPoint Files

On the PowerPoint ribbon, click on File.

Click on File to access the password-protect option in PowerPoint

In the Info section, click on the first option, Protect Presentation. Then choose Encrypt with Password.

The steps you need to follow to get to the Encrypt With Password option in PowerPoint

You’ll then see the Encrypt Document pop-up:

The next step for you to do is to type in the password you’d like to assign for your PowerPoint file and click on the OK button. Remember: Keep your password in a safe place as losing or forgetting it will mean permanent loss of access to your encrypted file!
After you’ve typed your password, PowerPoint will ask you to confirm and re-enter your password. Hit OK again.

Confirm your password so you can successfully password-protect your file

Note that if you type in an incorrect password, you’ll get the following error message:

The error message you will see if you type in the wrong password in PowerPoint

When you’ve successfully confirmed your password, you will notice that the Protect Presentation icon has changed and you will see the message “A password is required to open this presentation.”

Success! You’ve successfully password-protected your PowerPoint file.

The next time you open your password-protected PowerPoint file, you’ll be asked to enter the password:

You will need to enter your password every time you open the encrypted PowerPoint file

Simply type your password, click OK, and you’re good to go!

Now that you know how to password protect your PowerPoint file, it’s time to learn how to disable password protection for when you no longer need to protect your file.

How To Disable Password Protection In PowerPoint

Disabling password protection in PowerPoint is a simple affair. You’d simply need to reverse the steps we took in the first part of this article and delete the password you’ve previously nominated. Here’s how you do it:

Go to the File menu, click on Info > Protect Presentation > Encrypt with Password.

To remove password protection in your PowerPoint file, follow the steps shown in the screenshot

When the Encrypt Document pop-up appears, you will see your old password in the password box. All you have to do is just DELETE the password, then hit OK.

Delete the password you’ve nominated previously and hit OK to remove password protection in your PowerPoint file

That’s it! Your PowerPoint file will no longer be password protected.

Other Ways To Protect Your PowerPoint File

Password protection is not the only way to protect your PowerPoint file. If you go to File > Info > Protect Presentation, you will see 4 different options. We’ve already covered the Encrypt With Password option in the first section so we will only cover the remaining 3 methods:

Mark as Final

Choose this option if you want to let other people know the file is the final version. This makes the file a read-only file which means other people can’t edit the file.

You will see this dialog box when you choose to mark a PowerPoint file as Final.

Dialog box that appears when you mark a PowerPoint file as final version

When you click OK, you’ll be able to have access to the file, but a yellow bar will appear at the top, like this:

The yellow Marked as Final bar in PowerPoint

If you click on Edit Anyway, the file will no longer be the final version. If you want to make the edited file the final version, you can go through the same steps and select Mark as Final again.

Restrict Access

You can specify who gets to have access to your PowerPoint file. To enable this, you need to have Windows Rights Management installed on your computer.

If you don’t have Windows Rights Management installed, you’ll get this error message:

You need to have Windows Right Management installed to use the Restrict Access option

Add a Digital Signature

You can use this option to add a visible or invisible digital signature.

If you don’t have a digital ID, you’ll get this prompt asking you to get a digital ID. Click on Yes if you’d like to get one.

To add a digital signature to your PowerPoint file, you need to get a digital ID first

For more information about digital ID or digital certificate services, read this page to know more.

Final Words

Keeping important files safe is very important. In this article, you learned not just how to password protect PowerPoint files, but you also learned other methods as well. The next time you’re working on a top-secret presentation, remember to set a secure password and keep it in a safe location.