Option two, Encrypt with Password, allows your to password protect your PowerPoint file. It’s useful to prevent unauthorised access to your content. Choose this option and you’re prompted to enter a password in a dangerous-looking dialog box:
Screenshot of the Encrypt Document pop up. The user has an option to add a password.
Now when the PowerPoint file is opened you must enter a password to fully access it. This is similar to the read-only password discussed later in this post but uses strong encryption on the contents of the file so that even the unzip hack, also discussed later, can’t be used to gain access to the content. The biggest drawback of the feature is that it’s only a read/open protection mechanism. There is no equivalent edit/copy/write mechanism, meaning that once the user is in the file, they can make any changes they like.
The third and fourth choices don’t help you protect your file as such. Option three, Add a Digital Signature, provides your users with a guarantee that the content you sent has arrived unaltered. Certificates installed on your system can be used to sign the file. And on opening the file, the signature status is also displayed in the message bar:
Screenshot of the PowerPoint ribbon. Below the ribbon are two yellow notifications. The first says: Marked as final and the second says This document contains valid signatures. The user has two buttons they can press, the first says Edit Anyway and the second says View Signatures.
Finally, the last of these four options, Mark phone numbers lebanon as Final, does just that. It saves the presentation with a marker:
Pop up confirming the PowerPoint has been marked as final.
Again, neither of these methods add any real protection to your content.
Converting to PDF
In the distant dawn of time, you used to have to buy a PDF conversion application. That’s long behind you now as the Office suite of apps have PDF conversion built-in. Click the File button in the ribbon to open the backstage view and then click the Export tab and select the first option.
Screenshot of the PowerPoint Export tab. The first option is Create PDF/XPS Document
When you click the Create PDF/XPS button, a window will open where you can choose the location to save your PDF:
You can also click the Options… button to configure various aspects of the conversion:
Screenshot of the Options pop up. The user can alter the Range, the have several Publish options to chose from and the ability to include non-printing infomation, there are also PDF options.