Dear Woofy, Clients and I are always sending sensitive information back and forth via E-mail attachments. These may include employee information, and/or system shortcuts that only the system administrator should have. Is there a way to password protect this information. Privacy seeker in Parumph, NV.

Dear P.S., You are smart to protect this sensitive data, as some states now have laws which hold harmful any persons, or corporations who are negligent in the protection of specific sensitive information.

The simple way to solve this is to use the Password protecting tool in Microsoft Word and Excel documents. Before password protecting any document, you may wish to create a backup of the non-password protected file in case you forget the password in the future.

Here are the steps required for creating a Microsoft Word or Excel document with a password.

* Open Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel and the document you wish to password protect
* Click File
* Click Save As
* In the Save As window, click the Tools option in the upper right-hand side of the window
* From the Tools drop-down menu, select General or Security Options (depending on your version)
* This will open a Save window that will allow you to specify a password used to open the file and/or modify the file.

Password to open - Entering a password for this option will make the file only readable to the users who know the password. Password to modify - Entering a password for this option will allow users to view the file but only edit and save the file if they know the password. Keep in mind, however, that a user could easily open the file, copy the contents of the file to another file, and modify and create their own document.

Now that that's done, lets go for a walk!