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AnthonyCM

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 17, 2007
202
7
The Girlfriend and I recently made the switch to a Mac, and we're sharing a computer. I do a bit of writing that I like to keep private. How do I password protect a Pages document?

Thanks in advance for the help.

-anthony
 

gavd

macrumors 6502a
Jan 30, 2006
602
2
You can't password protect the actual documents, but you can create an encrypted folder. Just make sure you don't have the box checked to store the password in your keychain.
 

MisterMe

macrumors G4
Jul 17, 2002
10,709
69
USA
The Girlfriend and I recently made the switch to a Mac, and we're sharing a computer. I do a bit of writing that I like to keep private. ...
Create separate accounts for each of you. Set privileges of your documents to restrict read access to your account.
 

IJ Reilly

macrumors P6
Jul 16, 2002
17,909
1,496
Palookaville
Create separate accounts for each of you. Set privileges of your documents to restrict read access to your account.

This is the best suggestion for a multi-user Mac. If it's of any interest, PDF files generated from Pages can be password protected, but not the documents themselves.

Keeping secrets from the girlfriend, eh? ;)
 

eclipse

macrumors 6502a
Nov 18, 2005
986
13
Sydney
But Microsoft and even NeoOffice have password protection under basic "Save as" options. This seems like a fairly basic oversight to me. However, thanks for the suggestions above, I'll look into it.

Set privileges of your documents to restrict read access to your account.

Also: Does this strategy mean I'd have to log out and log back in as the other account just to read a document? It's mainly just me on this computer. If I set up a special business Account called "Records" or something for all those business passwords, and I wanted that file password protected.... how do I set the privileges so that only the "Records" account/password can read that file? I've looked under Command i and can't find it.
 

benthewraith

macrumors 68040
May 27, 2006
3,140
143
Fort Lauderdale, FL
But Microsoft and even NeoOffice have password protection under basic "Save as" options. This seems like a fairly basic oversight to me. However, thanks for the suggestions above, I'll look into it.



Also: Does this strategy mean I'd have to log out and log back in as the other account just to read a document? It's mainly just me on this computer. If I set up a special business Account called "Records" or something for all those business passwords, and I wanted that file password protected.... how do I set the privileges so that only the "Records" account/password can read that file? I've looked under Command i and can't find it.

I'm pretty sure you'd just have to authenticate if you wanted to read it, not log out.
 

eclipse

macrumors 6502a
Nov 18, 2005
986
13
Sydney
But how do I do it?

I have my computer set up to just boot me in as ADMIN. So.... ADMIN always seems to have the right to open any file. If it means every day as I boot up I have to "Log in" under one account so that I can then have a password on some file labelled as belonging to another account, then forget it. I just want to turn my computer on and have it open up as "me" each day.

Why can't mac put a password protect function into iWorks? They're mac! The software should be easy, and this is a pretty basic function that's been in Word files forever.
 

teckno101

macrumors newbie
Mar 27, 2009
4
0
Simple way to password protect

In Pages '09 you can password protect a file by opening Inspector. On the bottom of the Document Inspector tab there are options to password protect. If you have previous versions of Pages, I would recommend using a password protected dmg file. See: this web page.
 

eclipse

macrumors 6502a
Nov 18, 2005
986
13
Sydney
yep, Pages09 is the only thing I use now.... no more NeoOffice because it was just too slow on my old G5.
 
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