Word 2007 Protect Document disabled - how do I enable it?

[Steve Hickman]

I have a Word 2007 document that contains some text fields and some check
boxes. It has evolved in the last several weeks. As it has grown, I've copied
and pasted text fields and check boxes to new portions of the form. I used to
be able to protect the document so that only the form fields could be
altered. Now when I attempt to do so (using Review -> Protect Document ->
Restrict Formatting and Editing), I get the sidebar with the sections on
"1.Formatting restrictions", "2. Editing restrictions", and "3. Start
enforcement", but the fields in these sections are greyed out/ disabled. As
a result, I can't turn this back into a form.

How do I fix this so that my document work like a form again? Neither saving
it in Word 2007 nor saving in Word 2003 format helps resolve this problem.

 

[Jay Freedman]

If the Design Mode button on the Developer tab of the ribbon is activated, click
to turn it off. Protection can't be applied while a form is in Design Mode.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all
may benefit.

 

[Steve Hickman]

Your response was interesting and educational (I've never heard of the
Developer tab or Design Mode), but, unfortunately, doesn't resolve the
problem. I enabled the Developer tab in order to find the Design Mode button.
It was not on. In any case, I tried to Protect Document again, and still got
the same result as before. Any other suggestions?

 

[Jay Freedman]

Design Mode is the only thing I know of that "normally" disables form
protection, that is, as behavior designed into the program. It's possible that
something is corrupted in the document, causing it to behave abnormally. If so,
that often responds to the technique of copying everything except the final
paragraph mark, and pasting into a new blank document. See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm.

 

[Steve Hickman]

That seems to have done the trick! Thanks!

Design Mode is the only thing I know of that "normally" disables form
protection, that is, as behavior designed into the program. It's possible that
something is corrupted in the document, causing it to behave abnormally. If so,
that often responds to the technique of copying everything except the final
paragraph mark, and pasting into a new blank document. See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm.