You may have to enter a password in order to modify the document. This setting is not the one locking your document. If you don’t see that button but instead see a ‘ Start protection‘ button, you can close this little window. If at the bottom, you have a Stop Protection button, click that. Next to the document, a little window should pop up.

Switch to the Review tab and then hit the Protect Document button to bring up a small menu.įrom that menu, choose Restrict Formatting and Editing. If you are still not able to edit the document, it may be protected. After that, the icon will now appear unhighlighted and the icon will be gone from the status bar. In order to make changes, the document just needs to be “un-finalized.” Go back to the Office button -> Prepare menu and click “Mark as Final” to toggle it off. This also makes the red (spelling) and green (grammar) squiggles under words go away as well as any marked changes throughout the document.īesides the ‘Mark as Final’ icon being highlighted in the Prepare sub-menu you will also notice a small version of the same icon at the bottom of Word 2007 in the status bar. It would be best practice to mark your document as final before you send it off to others for professional evaluation. This means that it is enabled and the document is “finalized.” It won’t allow any changes to the document.

In this sub-menu, you’ll see an icon next to ‘Mark as Final’ highlighted in orange. Click on the Office button (the circle with the office logo on it in the top-left corner) and go down to the Prepare sub-menu.

How to edit protected word document