Adding password to a PDF file is definitely a nice idea when sharing it using an unsecured means. But how do we add password to PDF files or how do we encrypt PDF files? This is the question most of the people need answer for. For this task of adding password to PDF files a.k.a encrypting PDF files, here is a simple and free utility called PDF ReDirect.

You can download PDF ReDirect from download.com by clicking here.

The interface of PDF ReDirect application is a bit confusing, so here is the whole encryption process in simple steps:

1. Launch the application
2. Drill down to the folder which contains the PDF file which you want to encrypt
3. The PDF files in the folder will be shown under “Files” area.
4. Now add the file to the merge list by clicking the somewhat ‘plus’ marked button.
5. Under Settings pan (present in the right), check the “Encrypt PDF files” checkbox under ‘security’.
6. Set the name of the output PDF file near the bottom of the application window and click “Save”.
7. Your PDF file will be encrypted in few moments.

Click the image below for graphical illustration of the process:

To encrypt a file/folder in Windows, you need to right click on it, click “properties”, then click on the “Advanced” button and finally, you need to check the “Encrypt” checkbox. This long and time consuming way can be replaced by a shorter way of encrypting/decrypting files and folders from right click context menu.

Enabling Encrypt/Decrypt in right click context menu is easy and requires a simple registry hack. To enable Encrypt/Decrypt in right click context menu, follow the given steps:

1. Open Notepad (not WordPad)

2. Copy and paste the following string into the notepad file you just opened:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
“EncryptionContextMenu”=dword:00000001

3. Remove both double quotes you copied and type double quotes manually. It is so because double quotes copied from a webpage is different from that typed manually.

4. Save the notepad file as Encrypt.reg” with Save as type is “All Files”.

5. Double click the registry file, continue with UAC prompt and click OK when asked to confirm the changes.

Once you have done the above mentioned 6 steps, you will be able to right click on a file/folder and select Encrypt/Decrypt from the right click context menu.