How to Remove the 'Read Only' Status on MS Word Documents

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Is your Word document opening in read-only mode? You'll need to turn off this protected view mode before you can make changes to the file. Fortunately, this is really easy to do! This wikiHow article will walk you through changing a read-only Microsoft Word document into one that's unlocked and ready to edit.

• Word files may be read-only due to Protected View, password protection, or file permissions in Windows or macOS.
• If you're using Windows, right-click the file, select "Properties," click the "Properties" tab, then remove the Read-only attribute. [1] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source
• On a Mac, click the file, go to "File" > "Get Info" > "Sharing & Permissions," and allow "Read & Write" permission.

Disabling Protected View for Online Files

Understand which documents are likely to be protected. Any Microsoft Word document which you download from the Internet (e.g., an email attachment or a file from a website) will have read-only protection assigned to it whenever you open it. You can disable this protection when first opening the document.

• If the Word document is currently open, close it and re-open it.

• If you don't see this banner even after closing and re-opening the Word document, try one of the other methods in this article.

Click Enable Editing . This button should be on the right side of the banner. Doing so will refresh the Word document and remove the read-only protection. You should now be able to edit the document. [3] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

Disabling Protected View for Password-Protected Files

Open the Word document. Double-click the Word document from which you want to remove the protection. It will open in Word.

Click the Review tab. This tab is in the upper-right corner of the Word window. Doing so opens the Review toolbar at the top of the Word window.

Click Restrict Editing . You'll find this option on the far-right side of the Review toolbar. Clicking it prompts a pop-out menu to appear on the right side of the window. [4] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

• If you or another user on your computer's account created the protection without a password, clicking Stop Protection will automatically remove the protection.

• If you don't know the password, you'll have to copy and paste the file's contents instead.

Save your changes. Press Ctrl + S (Windows) or ⌘ Command + S (Mac) to do so. From now on, the file won't be read-only protected unless you re-enable editing protection.

Changing the File's Properties

• If the file isn't actually on your computer (e.g., it's on a flash drive or a CD), move the file onto your computer before proceeding.

• Windows — Click once the Word file, right-click the Word file, and click Properties in the drop-down menu.
• Mac — Click the Word file, click the File menu item in the top-left side of your Mac's screen, and click Get Info.

• On a Mac, you'll have to click the Sharing & Permissions heading near the bottom of the window.

• Windows — Uncheck the "Read-only" box near the bottom of the window, click Apply, and click OK.
• Mac — Click the Read option to the right of your name, then click Read & Write in the menu which appears.
  • You may first have to click the lock in the bottom-left corner of the Get Info window and then enter your Mac's password before you can do this.

  

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  Try to edit the file. Open the Word document by double-clicking it, then try to edit it. Keep in mind that you may first have to remove the online read-only lock before doing so.

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  Copying and Pasting

  

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  Understand how this works. If your primary goal is to edit the Word document, you can copy the Word document's text and paste it into a new Word document and then save the new document onto your computer. While doing this won't remove the read-only protection from the original document, it will create an editable copy.

  

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  \n"> Open the protected Word document. Double-click the Word document to do so.

  

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  Select the whole document. Press either Ctrl + A (Windows) or ⌘ Command + A (Mac) to do so. You should see the entire document become highlighted. [8] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

  

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  Copy the selected text. Press either Ctrl + C (Windows) or ⌘ Command + C (Mac). This will copy the document's text to your computer's clipboard. [9] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

  

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  • On a Mac, click the File menu item, then click New Blank Document at the top of the drop-down menu.

  

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  • This may take a few seconds if the original document was particularly large or contained images.

  

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  Save the document as a new file. Press Ctrl + S (Windows) or ⌘ Command + S (Mac), then enter your document's name and click Save. [11] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source You'll be able to edit the document you just created like usual. [12] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

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  Community Q&A

  My documents are in Microsoft Office as PDF files and they are read only. How do I turn read only off?

  Community Answer

  Save it as a new document, delete the old one, and rename the new one. This should allow you to edit it.

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  Another way to remove the read-only protection from a Microsoft Word document is by converting the Word document into a PDF with the SmallPDF online converter, downloading the converted PDF, and then converting the PDF back into a Word document with SmallPDF. [13] X Research source

  Submit a Tip All tip submissions are carefully reviewed before being published Please provide your name and last initial Thanks for submitting a tip for review!

  

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  It's much easier to copy the protected document's text and paste it into a new document than it is to try to crack Microsoft's security.

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