The present invention allows the user (author or creator) of a document to specify that certain portions of a document be selected for encryption while other portions of the document remain displayed as created. In addition, each encrypted section could have multiple encryption keys such that some viewers can review certain parts of the document while other viewers will not have that same access. The user could employ a standard word processing editor technique to highlight (or swipe) portions of a document that the user desires to be encrypted. The highlighted portion would then be `tagged` with a surrounding attribute indicating to the word processor that this highlighted portion of the document is to be encrypted. The highlighted sections would also have encryption keys associated with the highlighted and encrypted section. Any one of the encryption keys for that section would decrypt that section. With proper authorization, any encrypted portion of a document would be displayed as part of the document. Without proper authorization, the display of the document would only contain the unencrypted portions of the document.