Word document - how to lock and allow printing ...

"Protecting" a document by using the Restrict Editing pane in Word can prevent editing (adding, deleting, or changing text and graphics) and changing formatting (using different styles or applying direct formats). If that's what you want to do, click the Restrict Editing button on the Review ribbon, check the box under "2. Editing restrictions", and leave the dropdown set to "No changes (read only)". Click the "Yes, Start Enforcing Protection" button and click OK in the dialog box that opens; then save the document. This will not prevent or interfere with printing the document.

However, document protection can't ensure that the document printed on some other computer will look exactly like it looks on your computer. The reason is that Word relies on the printer driver installed on the computer to determine character spacing, which can change where the line breaks occur, and sometimes even change where some page breaks occur. This is explained more at http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com/TextReflow.htm. If you're concerned about this, the best approach is to save the document as a PDF file, which should be the same on any computer.

Thank you, Suzanne.

If you want to assure that the layout and format won't change, yet allow printing, you should send the document as a PDF.

Thanks a lot, Jay, will try this later.