How to lock a Microsoft Word document to prevent editing

If you don't lock and protect your Word document, the chances of someone else opening your Word document and overwriting it are very high. Well, one way to make sure no one else is editing your Word document is to print it out. But to be sure, this option is not always practical since it involves physical copies. Another option is to convert your Word document to PDF and then share the PDF. But there are PDF editors available, and editing PDFs is easy.

So are there any other solutions? How do you lock your document and set a password so that anyone who wants to edit your document must enter this password? Sound cool? So, read on.

How to Lock and Protect a Microsoft Word Document

Step 1: First, open the Word document you want to lock and protect in Microsoft Word.

Now, click on the "Review" tab at the top. Then click the "Restrict Editing" button in the "Protect" section.

Step 2: When the Restrict Editing option is turned on, do the following:

1. Under the Editing Limitations section, select the checkbox corresponding to Allow only this type of editing in the document.
Under the same section itself, select
2. No changes (read-only) from the associated drop-down menu.
Now, under the
3. Exceptions (optional) heading, select the checkbox corresponding to Everyone. Finally, under the "
Start execution
4. " section, click the "Yes, start execution of protection" button.

Step 3

: You can now see a window called Start Enforcing Protection. Under the Password section, you must provide a password to protect your document and then confirm the password by re-entering it. If you want to unlock your document later, you will need this password. If you think you'll forget your password, write it down somewhere. After entering the password, click the

Confirm

button.

Step 4

: That’s it. Your document is now protected. If you try to edit your document now, at the bottom of the window you will receive a message stating This modification is not allowed because the selection is locked.

How to Unlock a Protected Microsoft Word Document

So no one can edit your document anymore. But what if you yourself want to edit the document at some point in the future? Well, let's see how to do this.

Step 1

: Open the protected document and click the Review tab at the top. Next, click the "Restrict Editing" button. Under the

Restrict Editing

option, you will be able to see a button called Stop Protection. click it.

Step 2

: You will now be prompted to enter the password you

used when locking the document in Section 1. Enter the password and click the OK button.

Step 3

: There you go! Your document is no longer protected. You can make as many edits as you want and lock it again. enjoy!

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