Locking parts of a Word document

[T.F.]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Power PC

I have a Word document that has running text, graphics and empty text boxes on each page. I would like to lock everything in the document except the empty text boxes. I want to provide the document to clients who would read information and then fill in comments in the empty text boxes. I want everything else locked to protect the layout from getting altered as it could throw off the whole thing. Is this possible to do in Word 2008? Thanks.

 

[John McGhie]

Yes, it's possible, but not in Word 2008 until they fix the bug that
prevents it working

Generically, a text box is attached to the text by an anchor. That anchor
is always at the beginning of a paragraph.

You can create paragraphs specifically to contain the anchors of your text
boxes. If you do, you can then surround the paragraph that contains the
anchor with section breaks of type "Continuous".

And if you do that, you can then use Tools>Protect Document to protect just
the sections you do not want the users altering, leaving them free to enter
text in the unprotected text boxes.

If you open a document that has this structure in it with Word 2008, the
whole document will be read-only. That's a bug. Look for the next service
pack to fix it.

Cheers

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Power PC

I have a Word document that has running text, graphics and empty text boxes on
each page. I would like to lock everything in the document except the empty
text boxes. I want to provide the document to clients who would read
information and then fill in comments in the empty text boxes. I want
everything else locked to protect the layout from getting altered as it could
throw off the whole thing. Is this possible to do in Word 2008? Thanks.

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John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]