Sure, IF you have the right tools. There are programs out there which claim to break passwords. ALL of them WILL eventually break the password, however, MOST will also take a very long TIME to do the job. The reason why they WILL succeed is also why they will take a LONG time, the "brute force" attack. A brute force attack is simple, exactly like counting from 1 to some number, trying every pattern of characters to see if it works. Say I have a password that is nothing more complicated than a 10 digit number. All I have to do is start at 10 zeros and count to 10 9's, a total of 100 million combinations. If I add 26 characters, then I get to 10 character positions with 36 possibilities for each position, or 10^36 combinations. As you can see, the combinations possible gets BIG really fast. There are 96 printable characters, and even more if you include non-printable characters. Do the math. So, while it will always work, it will always take a long time to do the job. So, since a brute force attack takes a long time, AND most people will NOT chose a random 10 character password which is relatively secure, usually picking a common word, date or something you could guess, a lot will start with a dictionary attack, trying a lot of commonly used words, phrases, dates and such hoping to hit on something that a lazy person would use. There is a logistical problem to overcome with something like a network password. Networks only let you try a few times and reward failure after several attempts with a lockout for a period of time, 15 minutes is a common setting. So, even MORE time is needed to even TRY passwords. Documents do not have this kind of a lockout feature, so then your limit is how fast your computer can try combinations. I use passwords which are easy to remember, but also very hard to guess. For example, I use letters and numbers. I used to live in Hinsdale, Illinois. The street address was 350 West 55th Street so I could use HINS350W55. Someone who would know this information about my past COULD guess this, but at 10 characters, mostly random, it is quite secure for most things. So, yes, people CAN break passwords if you have the right tools. Even more secure is to use an archive program such a WINZIP or WINRAR and password protect the archive. ZIP and RAR both use a very secure password algorithm called a one-way hash. A one way hash works by performing certain actions on the password to translate it in some manner, then they store the end result. Later, they simply compare the results of an attempt with what is stored to unlock the file. A one way hash is just that, one way. Starting with the end result, you can not work backwards to find the password, even if you know the exact sequence of actions performed ON the password! MS uses this on their network security, but I do not know what they use for document or spreadsheet security. So, "easy" is a relative term and is dependent on the encryption algorithm used and the password you choose. Just be aware, that you have to remember the password, as writing it down defeats the purpose... Now, you know why I choose a combination of partial names, places, and numbers which mean something to ME but are mostly gibberish to anyone else. I might consider the password example above my "H" password to jog my memory and use something like _pw_h added to the file name.