Using Windows Rights Management in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

We already explored how you can get started with Information Rights Management (IRM) in PowerPoint 2010 by first signing up for the Windows Rights Management (WRM) service. This service implements Microsoft's access controls for documents across Office 2010 applications such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel, etc. Once you have signed up for WRM, you can set permissions for all presentations that you need to share as long as you and all other recipients for your files fulfil these two requirements:

1. All users have a Windows Live ID
2. All users have signed up for WRM using their Windows Live IDs.

Once these prerequisites are in place, follow these steps to set permissions:

1. Launch PowerPoint, and open any existing presentation that you want to set permissions for. If you made any changes to your slides, do save your presentation before you proceed further.
2. Access the File menu, and choose the Info option to get to Backstage view, as shown in Figure 1 below. Thereafter, select the Protect Presentation option to bring up a small drop-down menu (see Figure 1 again).
   
   
   Figure 1: Protect Presentation drop-down menu
3. Now click the Restrict Permission by People option to bring up a sub-menu as shown in Figure 2. Select the Restricted Access option.
   
   
   Figure 2: Restricted Access option selected
4. This brings up the Permission dialog box, select the Restrict permission to this presentation check-box, as shown highlighted in red in Figure 3, below.
   
   
   Figure 3: Permission dialog box
5. Note that there are two distinct areas within the Permissions dialog box that let you add permissions for two categories of users:
   
   • Read access: Users whose Windows Live IDs you enter within this area can view your presentation and programmatically access the presentation.
   
   • Change access: Users whose Windows Live IDs you enter within this area have almost complete access to the presentation, they can alter the content to whichever extent they want.
6. Type in the email addresses associated with Windows Live IDs that you want to provide access to, as shown in Figure 4 below. Then click the OK button, highlighted in red in Figure 4.
   
   
   Figure 4: Email addresses entered within the Read and Change boxes
7. At this point of time, you have provided permissions to the Windows Live IDs specified in the Read and Change boxes, at any point of time, you can revoke permissions, add new permissions, and also create custom permission levels, we will cover these topics in subsequent tutorials.