Center For Practice Management, Microsoft Office, Security

Protect a Portion of a Word Document

Do you need to share a word processing document with someone but want to limit what text the recipient can edit? For instance, would you like to create a pre-approved contract that allows some clauses to be editable? Or do you have standard internal documents that you would like to make available to everyone but limit editing of certain portions? Did you know that, unlike PDF creation tools that only allow a user to apply copy, print and edit restrictions to the whole document, Microsoft Word gives the document creator a number of granular editing restrictions?  Just go to the Review tab and click on “Restrict Editing”  in the “Protect” group.

To apply editing restrictions, open the “Review” tab and click on “Restrict Editing” in the “Protect” group. This will open a new pane with two restriction options. If your firm makes extensive use of Styles and templates the first option “Formatting restrictions” may be of interest because you can keep others from changing formatted Styles, which includes auto-numbering, table of authorities and citations.

Restrict Editing in a MS Word document

The other restriction option is “Editing restrictions”. Check the box and then choose from the drop down menu to limit use of the document to track changes, add comments, or fill in form fields (see how to turn a MS Word document into a fillable form in the “How To… Automate Functions in Word ” video). The last option in the drop down menu is “No changes (read only)”.

If you select to restrict a document to “Comments” “Filling in Forms” or “No changes (Read only)” another option appears, which is to allow exceptions to the editing restrictions. Simply select text in the document that you will allow users to have full editing rights to.  Click “Everyone” allow people to edit the selected sections.

Finally, click “Yes, Start Enforcing Protection.”  You will be prompted to create a password and confirm it. If you skip this step anyone who has access the document can stop enforcement of protections.

After you start enforcement anyone who opens the document (including you until you enter the password and stop enforcing protection) will be restricted to commenting, filling in forms, or merely viewing the document EXCEPT the portions that they have full edit rights to, which are highlighted for them.

Catherine Sanders Reach is the Director of the North Carolina Center for Practice Management. NCBA members, click here to learn more about how the Center for Practice Management can help you. NCBA CPM: Practice Smart.