Your Tech Tamer

By Sandra Clitter 　http://www.yourtechtamer.com/blog/2012/07/password-protect-pdfs/

We’ve all done it…we’ve sent an attachment to an e-mail that contains information which shouldn’t be ‘shared’ with the public. Think documents which contain passwords or social security numbers or things of that nature. Maybe it’s a contract that has sensitive information. It could be pretty much ANYTHING that you don’t really want to share with the world. There have been times that I’ve hit ‘send’ then said ‘Ohhhh…I shouldn’t have sent that out there where it could be intercepted’. Other times, I didn’t give it a thought…just sent it. Sometimes (and I’m ashamed to admit this), I’ve known better, but cross my fingers and hope that no ‘mischievous’ person or computer will intercept it along the way.

Why didn’t I make a habit of sending things ‘protected’? Because I didn’t have a tool that was inexpensive which would allow me to password protect the files. I’ve written before (Creating PDFs for Free) about getting AND USING a PDF writer for documents which you don’t want altered (think contracts, financial calculations, etc.). While PDF’s prevent people from changing the contents of a document, ANYONE who has access to the PDF file can open/review it. Not necessarily good.

So, how to deal with this and become a better cyber-citizen? After you’ve created your PDF file, PASSWORD PROTECT IT!! How? Glad you asked!

There is a WONDERFUL site called PDFProtect (http://www.pdfprotect.net/)…and it couldn’t be EASIER…SERIOUSLY!!!

Simply go to pdfprotect.net. You’ll see this screen (click the image to enlarge):

Browse to the PDF that you want to protect.
Enter the password that you want to use for that file.
Click “Protect”.
You’re done.

This screen will appear – the protected file will be saved to your computer immediately:

Double-click in your downloads:

You will be challenged for the password (as will anyone who tries to open this document):

There you go! You can e-mail the document with peace-of-mind. Now, there’s no excuse for sending unsecured documents!!!