I am using Office 2003 on Windows XP.

If you go to [Tools] then [Options] tab then [Security] tab then
click [Advanced], you have the option of using an encryption method which
would seem to offer greater security than a simple password.

It says that if used, a user would then need a "public key" to decrypt the
file.

However, I applied an encryption method on a test file, but I still only
need the file password to open the file. Does encryption actually encrypt the
file - or the file password?

Does anyone know how this is supposed to work? How do you encrypt a file and
then obtain a key? Can this not be done at the user level?

Thanks for your assistance.