Anyone who uses PowerPoint should be aware of how vulnerable their files are. A rival employee walking by your desk while you are away could easily access your files, as could virtually any person over the Internet with some knowledge of accessing databases. Whether you use PowerPoint for sales presentations, new product launches, releasing financial data or otherwise you should be making sure that your files and data are protected from anyone who may want to access them.
It is an unfortunate fact that within most companies there are two types of people: those who keep their heads down, work hard and come by their achievements honestly, and those who will do anything it takes to be successful, even stoop to taking credit for another’s work. If you are of the first type of person, no matter how good you think everyone you work with is, the last thing you want is to have all your hard work stolen by an unscrupulous co-worker.
Protecting your files in PowerPoint is very simple:
- In your PowerPoint file click on the Office Button in the top right-hand corner
- Select Prepare
- Select Encrypt Document
- You will be prompted for a password – make sure it isn’t too simple or it will be easily broken
- Confirm the password and then you are done
While it may be tempting to use the same password for all of your files this is not advisable, since if someone chose to use password recovery software to access your documents they would only have to get into one document to have access to everything you own. At the same time you don’t want your passwords to be too complicated because if you forget them you may never get back into the same file again.
It is best to choose a password that is 12-15 digits long and includes a combination of letters, numbers and symbols. Avoid passwords that could be easily guessed, like your birthday, wife’s name or street name that you live on. Perhaps go with something familiar like a childhood pet’s name with a number and a symbol on the end, unless someone really knows you it is unlikely they would be able to figure out the password. Or just make up a series of letters and number but don’t forget them.
If you choose to write down your passwords, make sure they are kept in a very secure place such as a safe or a document that is encrypted with a very long and complicated password (just don’t forget this one). Personally, while I don’t choose to keep my passwords private, I generally write them down in code so no one could guess them anyways. For example, if your password was Alpha1% you could just write down A1% - as long as only you know what the A stands for your files are safe.
Password protecting is something you should do on every file you have on your computer that contains sensitive or personal information. Additionally you should ensure that your computer itself is password protected, so if someone happened to walk off with it they wouldn’t have much of a chance of gaining access to your files. With these methods in place you can sleep soundly knowing that your files and computer are protected.
Tue, Dec 23, 2008
PowerPoint