In previous versions of Office, you were not able to “peek” at least for a moment into the contents of a file that can be assumed to represent a potential danger to your system. Thanks to a new feature in Word called Protected View, this is no problem at all. Namely, now you can freely open a suspicious document and then decide whether it is worth your attention. After all, this mode will be activated automatically in case you open a document that was downloaded from the Internet or was sent to you as an attachment to an e-mail message. In both cases, there is a real danger that the document contains a virus, so it is much better to handle it appropriately.

Protected View is actually a special copy of Word for which a corresponding segment of memory is reserved, which means that all your data is completely protected. This means that you can freely look at what is in it and then decide whether it can be considered safe for further work.

There are many reasons to declare a document suspicious and open it in this protected mode first. In any case, Word will explain the reason why it was done at the top of the screen, and I will do my best to give you some more typical situations.

– The document was transferred from the Internet. Many Web and FTP locations also contain Word documents that can be downloaded directly, but their content can be considered suspicious in any case.

– An attachment to an e-mail message. Even documents that arrive as attachments to e-mail messages are not secure enough. Many users immediately delete such files unless they come from a known source.

– Potentially unsafe location. Even if the document is on your hard drive, there is a possibility that it got there without your knowledge. This is often the case with the Temporary Internet Files folder because it contains data originating from various Internet sites.

– A document that was created with a really old version of Word. If it turns out that the file you want to open was created in Word 95 or an even older version, there is a possibility that access to such data will be restricted. At the same time, its review can be allowed, but the possibility of making any changes can be prevented. On the other hand, you can also allow it to be changed, but then the question arises as to whether this document is really that important to you after ten or more years.

In the Protected View mode, you can freely view the complete content of any document. You can use the Find function to search for specific content, but if you want to save or print it, you must first make sure that it is completely safe. In that case, you can click on the Enable Editing button and continue working. This still does not mean that it can be recorded or printed, because Word will ask you for additional confirmation if you start one of these functions. Namely, if you click on the Enable Editing button, Word will switch from the Protected View mode to the normal view of the document and mark it as safe. This means that next time it can be opened in a completely normal way. You can activate this function in two ways: if the reason why Word started the entire security procedure is one of those we have already mentioned, you can simply click on the corresponding button. On the other hand, if the content of the selected file cannot be checked, a different warning will appear on the screen. This means that the document really contains a virus or it was so damaged during saving that it simply does not contain usable data. In any case, you need to pay special attention in these situations, which is confirmed by the red color that dominates the background. As you can see, the Enable Editing button will not appear on the screen, but you will have to use a special procedure to open it. First, you’ll need to switch to Back Stage mode and click the Edit Anyway button.

If you are still not completely sure that the document you opened is completely safe, apply the following procedure. To begin, open the File menu and select the Open option from it. If after that you locate a document you suspect, before you finally open it, click on this little arrow next to the button and select Open in Protected View from the menu. In this way, you will start a new copy of the program and once again safely check its content.