Password Protect a PDF

Choosing a good password

A short or common password can be guessed by software in minutes, so length matters most. Three or four unrelated words, such as river-lamp-orange-42, are both strong and easy to type on a phone.

Avoid anything the recipient or an outsider could guess from the document itself, such as a name, date of birth, or the company name. Some organisations use a known format, for example PAN plus date of birth, for statements. That is convenient, but anyone who knows those details can open the file.

Send the password separately

A password in the same email as the attachment protects nothing if that email is forwarded or the inbox is compromised. Send the file by email and the password by text message, phone call, or a different chat app.

When to protect a PDF

• Salary slips, tax documents, and bank statements
• Scans of ID cards, passports, and certificates
• Medical reports and insurance claims
• Contracts, quotations, and other documents shared with clients
• Any file you upload to a shared drive that several people can access

What protection does and does not do

The password is required to open the file, and the contents are encrypted so they cannot be read without it. Once someone has opened it, though, they can save, print, or forward an unprotected copy, so share the password only with people you trust with the document.

Keep your own unprotected original. If you forget the password, Docsdom cannot recover it, and neither can anyone else.

Finish everything else first

Protection should be the last step. Merge files, add page numbers, and watermark the document before adding the password, because a protected file must be unlocked before it can be changed. To remove the password later, use Unlock PDF.