Unprotecting documents in Word 2007

[Michele]

Some designer ought to lose their job. I have word documents (basic forms)
that were created in Word 2003. Now that I have Word 2007 making changes to
these documents are a nightmare and sending them out to people to fill in
forms is awful.
First of all, it takes about 10 minutes for the correct drop down box to
appear. I hover, click, swipe and pray that the menu will come up so I can
stop protection. The menu flashes briefly. It is AWFUL. Then I have to go
through a whole series of complicated questions . I think I do it right -
send it out to people and am told they get a prompt for a password. 2003 WAS
SO MUCH EASIER.
If I protect a form, it is because I don't want the design of the form to be
changed - so that things line right and users can't expand beyond a set field
length. THat is why I protect. I use the same form every year and just update
the year, and now it has gotten to be a chore and a mess. My main beef is
that the REVIEW ribbon shows the protected document at the far right, and I
can't seem to access the options or lock into it.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Some designer ought to lose their job. I have word documents (basic
forms) that were created in Word 2003. Now that I have Word 2007
making changes to these documents are a nightmare and sending them
out to people to fill in forms is awful.
First of all, it takes about 10 minutes for the correct drop down box
to appear. I hover, click, swipe and pray that the menu will come up
so I can stop protection. The menu flashes briefly. It is AWFUL.
Then I have to go through a whole series of complicated questions . I
think I do it right - send it out to people and am told they get a
prompt for a password. 2003 WAS SO MUCH EASIER.
If I protect a form, it is because I don't want the design of the
form to be changed - so that things line right and users can't expand
beyond a set field length. THat is why I protect. I use the same form
every year and just update the year, and now it has gotten to be a
chore and a mess. My main beef is that the REVIEW ribbon shows the
protected document at the far right, and I can't seem to access the
options or lock into it.

What you're seeing is not normal and indicates that something about your
installation is incorrect or broken -- so you can stop blaming the
designers.

First try repairing your installation: Click the Office button, choose Word
Options at the bottom of the menu, click the Resources tab of the dialog,
and click the Diagnose button.

If that doesn't do it, try running an Office repair from Control Panel >
Add/Remove Programs.

If that still doesn't help, it may be that only the IRM portion of the
protection menu is broken, and that isn't something you should using. (It
sounds like that's what you're getting in your attempt to hit the menu
before it disappears, as that would account for the password requests.) As a
workaround, you can add a button for forms protection to your Quick Access
Toolbar this way:

- Right-click the Quick Access Toolbar and choose Customize.
- In the dialog, set the "Choose commands from" box to "Review Tab".
- In the list below that, select "Restrict Formatting and Editing".
- Click the Add button in the center of the dialog.
- Click OK.

When you click the new button on the Quick Access Toolbar, a task pane opens
on the right. This is the same pane that was in Word 2003.

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

 

[Beth Melton]

When you click Protect Document, click "Restrict Formatting and Editing".
Doing so will open the task pane for protecting the document as in previous
versions. It sounds like you are trying to use IRM protection which is
different that the type of protection you are looking for.

As Jay mentioned, if you are seeing delays when you click Protect Document
that indicates you may have some issues with your IRM server (Rights
Management Server). If you elected to setup a Windows Live ID (.NET
Passport) for your Rights Management Server then that might explain the
delay. IIRC, you needed to install a utility to use it and if you uninstall
it the functionality should return to normal.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Michele]

Well all my diagnostics say everything is fine and I have done the shortcut.
Now...what do I do? Last year when I created this form in 2003 I protected it
but could send it to everyone who made the entries such as name, address etc.
and everything worked fine. I have the Review protect thing up now in the
quick toolbar with a page and a little lock icon. I still get this quick
flash of what I want to see and then it goes away and I can't select anything
(eventually I get lucky and get to move ahead, but it is hit or miss.)

This year, despite thinking that I have unprotected it, everyone is
contacting me saying they can't get in, can't click file save as, nothing. I
went in and unclicked the box allowing people to be unrestricted for forms.
There are these questions now and I don't know how to answer them. It asks me
for an initial password when I click stop protection. Then I go in an click
to restrict them to allow to fill out a form, I then reinstall the
protection. It prompts me for a password which I ignore and click save.