# MS Word - Protect Form is a little too effective!



## Andrew_Rossington (Oct 29, 2007)

I have a word document to which I've added a couple of text boxes and tick boxes from the Control Toolbox toolbar.

I was hoping to protect these so that the user would not be able to move/change them in any way.

I clicked on the Protect Form button on the Forms toolbar, saved and closed. Now when I open it up, it seems that the entire document is protected, and the Protect Form button is now greyed out, and so I can't see how I'll be able to unprotect the document.

I'd appreciate any advice.


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## Macropod (Oct 30, 2007)

Hi Andrew,

If you click on the padlock symbol, you should be able to unprotect the document. Failing that, you can unprotect it via the Tools menu.

Now, if you want to leave some of your document unprotected, so that you users can type somewhere, you'll need to use one or more section breaks to separate the area with your formfields from the rest of the document, then protect only that section via the Tools menu (when you select the 'forms' protection, the 'sections' button will activate so that you can choose which section(s) to protect/unprotect).

Cheers


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## Andrew_Rossington (Oct 31, 2007)

> Hi Andrew,
> 
> If you click on the padlock symbol, you should be able to unprotect the document. Failing that, you can unprotect it via the Tools menu.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the prompt response.

Unfortunately the padlock button is now greyed out, and almost everything is inaccessible.


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## Macropod (Oct 31, 2007)

Hi Andrew,

Protecting the document does not disable the padlock, though its background shading changes. Did you try clicking on it, or unprotecting the document via the forms toolbar?

There are only a limited number of things you can do to make these features unavailable - like going into Header/Footer view - but you can't do that if the document is protected. You also won't be able to access it if there's a macro running in the background - perhaps you've got one that's stuck in an endless loop or for which you've hit Ctrl-Break to suspend.

Cheers


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## Andrew_Rossington (Nov 2, 2007)

> Hi Andrew,
> 
> Protecting the document does not disable the padlock, though its background shading changes. Did you try clicking on it, or unprotecting the document via the forms toolbar?
> 
> ...



I take it my situation is fairly unique then?

I've tried clicking the padlock button on the forms toolbar, and I've tried click unprotect document on the tools drop-down menu, but neither have proved successful.

And, unfortunately, no macros running either.

It's no big deal, I can recreate the document, but it sure would be good to find out what's going on with it.

Thanks again.


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## t1 (Nov 16, 2007)

Andrew,

It is likely that your Macro Security level is too high and is disabling all Macros in the document when you open it.  Due to this, the 'Protect Form' button on the Forms toolbar plus the 'Un/Protect Document' option on the Tools menu will be disabled also.

1/ Open up MS Word and select Tools > Macro > Security... from the menu.
2/ In the Security dialogue, under the Security Level tab, choose Medium.
3/ Open up the document with the form in it and when asked, choose to enable Macros.

This should solve the problem.

All the best.


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## Andrew_Rossington (Nov 16, 2007)

> Andrew,
> 
> It is likely that your Macro Security level is too high and is disabling all Macros in the document when you open it.  Due to this, the 'Protect Form' button on the Forms toolbar plus the 'Un/Protect Document' option on the Tools menu will be disabled also.
> 
> ...




I thank you for the advice, however there are no macros in the document.


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## rob2k6 (Apr 20, 2009)

I have a slight extension to this problem:-

I have protected just one section in my document (in Word 2003) in order to stop users from deleting a Date form by mistake. However, this means I cannot now insert any fields, captions, cross-references etc. in the unprotected sections of the document (the menu items are greyed out).
Does anyone know what's causing this and how to fix it? I currently have to unprotect the document every time I wish to add a new field.


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