Office 2013 Bible: The Comprehensive Tutorial Resource

Chapter 11

Managing Document Security, Comments, and Tracked Changes

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding document protection

Using digital signatures and signature lines

Protecting a document with a password

Inserting comments

Tracking changes

Reviewing comments and changes

Comparing two documents using “legal blackline”

Combining documents that contain tracked changes

Word offers a variety of kinds of protection (although nothing is 100 percent secure). Some of the protection tools work hand in hand with other tools that facilitate collaboration and reviewing. For example, you can limit formatting or allow users only to enter tracked changes or comments.

This chapter looks at the types of document protection and review tools available to Word users and describes how to use them.

Protection Types

Word 2013’s privacy settings aren’t centrally located. To save you the trouble of searching to find what you can control, here’s the definitive list of the different types of protection (and pseudo-protection) Word 2013 offers and where to find them:

• Permission: Restrict a document so it can be opened and/or changed only by specific individuals. Select File ⇒ Info ⇒ Protect Document ⇒ Restrict Access. For this to work, your system must be set up for Information Rights Management so it can connect to a Digital Rights Management server, a topic that’s beyond the scope of this book.
• Digital signature: Sign a document with a digital signature to provide assurance that you are the source of the ...