Hi



New member here. I have a question about Track Changes within a Protected Document in Word 2010.

The application will allow me to enable Track Changes within a protected document, but the Accept and Reject are greyed out. The Next and Previous buttons are available, so I can step through the changes, but don't seem to be able to accept/reject.

Is there any way (e.g. macro) that I can enable this whilst retaining the document protection? I need the document to be editable, but need to lock down certain elements like headers, footers, sections etc. I also need to disable local copies being saved, hence the protection.

Thanks in advance. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

higenbs1

Your scheme is fundamentally flawed - protection does not prevent local copies being saved and is not a reliable way of preventing access to headers, footers, etc. Bypassing such protection is a trivial undertaking.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Probably should have mentioned, I have a macro applied that locks everything else down. The issue seems to be with Word seemingly allowing Track Changes functionality (i.e. you can make and see the changes) but you just can't accept/reject them for some reason.

Thanks

Did you see Paul's response?
There is no way to keep something from being copied if the person can read it.
If they can copy it, they can alter it.

Track changes and document protection are good tools, for use with cooperative people. Track changes is not normally used on protected documents because the idea is that areas that someone can change is somewhere they are supposed to be changing.

Yes, you can create a macro that will unprotect a document, accept all changes, and then re-protect the document. I do not choose to do so, but you can. If you attempt this, you need to know what kind of protection you are using. You will need to write the macro, not record it.

I did see it, but it's the accept/reject changes being greyed out that is the issue. I've already sorted all the other considerations using a macro.

Just seems odd that Word will appear to allow you to enable and use Track Changes on a protected document, but won't permit accept/reject.

Back to the drawing board, thanks all.

Again, easily bypassed - even if it's supposed to run every time the document is opened, all the user need do is not allow the macro to run; you can't force someone to allow your macro to run.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks but that's not the issue. I can edit the original post to remove reference to locking things down if we're struggling. Just want to know why accept/reject are greyed out when Track Changes is activated by exception on a protected document.

By design, apparently. It allows you to track changes a user might make without allowing them to accept/reject tracked changes that might be present in otherwise uneditable portions of the document or are attributable to other users of the document. This might be a limitation of how the 'track changes' facility works. One can still edit one's own tracked changes in the editable areas.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]