I'm trying to restrict editing to just being able to fill in forms on a word document that will be emailed. As long as the recipient opens the document in Word everything works. If they open it in something else (like Google Docs), the restriction isn't working and they can edit the entire document if they want. Is there anyway around this problem? Thanks in advance!

Unfortunately, "Filling in forms" protection can be easily circumvented, as you have noticed. What you can do is set a password to open and/or edit the document; this will be safer. Be sure to only share the password(s) with people who should have access.

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Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Or you could save the document in PDF format and use Acrobat Professional to turn the PDF into a fillable one (Word's formfields, etc. don't convert to fillable PDF fields).

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]