read-only document

Question

Yesterday I was working on a document, and suddenly it wouldn't SAVE, it said it was READ-ONLY. I have done various checks and cannot undo it.

Can anyone solve this problem?

Answer 1

Can you save the document with a new name?

Answer 2

Yesterday I was working on a document, and suddenly it wouldn't SAVE, it said it was READ-ONLY. I have done various checks and cannot undo it.

Can anyone solve this problem?

I occasionally have this problem so this is what I now do to work around it.

When it goes read only save the file with a new name so instead of:-

harry.docx

 - save as:-

harry_1.docx.

When you have saved off as:-

harry_1.docx

 - save that document back off as:-

harry.docx

You now have your original back.

Just delete the:-

harry_1.docx

 - that you created.

The above always works for me and I hope that it'll work for you too.

Answer 3

Thanks for this answer. I have gone to a few links, the last one of which is actually out of date.

None of them have helped my problem, which is quite simply that as soon as I got to save my edited word doc it goes into read-only mode and won't let me save. 

I suspect there is a bug hanging about somewhere, but the guy at Microsoft didn't have a clue what it was this morning.

Answer 4

Here is an old tip that may help:

Document is Suddenly Read Only

http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/LockedFiles.htm

I am writing an ordinary Word 2010 .docx. Most of the time when I click on Save it saves. But then suddenly, out of the blue, it tells me the document is Read-Only. I have to copy what I have just written, close the document, reopen it and paste the new material in.

I am using Windows XP and saving documents to a My Documents folder on my hard drive. I’m using Microsoft Office 2010 for Home and Office.

Try disabling background saves and see if that helps.

File > Options > Advanced tab > Save group > Allow background saves.

Check the security permission both on the folder level and the document level. If the common users (not the built-in administrator) don’t have Read permissions on the folder or document, the Read-Only issue may occur. Add the Administrators group or the user account to the permission list with Write authorities.

Try to create or save a Word document in Clean-boot to verify if any non-Microsoft application / service is conflicting with Word or not. Click here for the steps to enable Clean-boot.

 Note: once the trouble shooting is done, enable Normal Startup.

 Also follow the suggestions provided by Jennifer in the thread link below:-

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/word/thread/6db40771-b372-4cd8-a2cc-39f7710fc971

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Here is another possible fix

PowerPoint 2013: "Sorry, we couldn't open <filepath>" and "We can't save xxx because the file is read-only. To keep your changes, you'll need to save the presentation with a new name or in a different location"

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-powerpoint/powerpoint-2013-error-sorry-we-couldnt-open-c/8a4f0474-aa0d-4dcd-ac03-fd3a5b691a57?page=1&msgId=23be9cd7-8e48-47cb-8a4f-0c38b9ed9594

After having installed Office 2013 I am getting an error when I work in Powerpoint. The error will come once I have begun working on a presentation (this can either be a new or existing presentation). Maybe I can save a few times but at some point I will get the error "Sorry, we couldn't open <filepath>". If I then press save again I will get the message "We can't save xxx because the file is read-only. To keep your changes, you'll need to save the presentation with a new name or in a different location". When I do that the new presentation will have lost all graphical elements and they have all be replaced with a red cross and the text saying "The image part with relationship ID rld2 was not found in the file" (the id number is different for each graphical element). The text will still be in the presentation.

here's a post from Bella  (can't see the link right now)

UPDATE Link is here

"I had the same issue with PowerPoint 2013, and I think the culprit is MS Upload Center which is used to sync the offline files in the background. So this is what I did:

1. 1.    Go to Task Manager by doing taskmgr in Windows icon -> search box
2. 2.    In "Process" tab, look for MSOSYNC and kill the process
3. 3.    In PowerPoint, go to "File" and select "Options". Under "Save", and in "Save checked-out files to", tick the box "The server drafts location on this computer" instead of "The Office Document Cache". Then OK.
4. 4.    Restart PowerPoint and you can save it without that intermittent read-only message
5. 5.    To ensure that the MSOSYNC is not started automatically on reboot, then go to "Services" by typing services.msc in Windows icon -> search box. And in that window, locate "Offline Files" and right click, and select "Properties". From there, select change "Start-up type" to "Manual"

*Hope this helps everyone. It works for me :-)"*Now we have the msi version of 2013 (and no problem yet).WE do not see MSOSYNC running, maybe this is only in the click2Run version or maybe it's a sharepoint thing. Whatever it might be worth a go.

Here is a long shot that applies if you are at work

Documents with Document Properties set on them may enter read-only mode after saving

If you are running Office on a computer running Windows 8 that is joined to a domain with File Classification Infrastructure features turned on, the documents with Document Properties set becomes read-only when you save changes.

You can save the worksheet the first time. But you will see the following message: “The document was saved successfully, but Excel cannot re-open it because of a sharing violation. Please close the document and try to open it again.” If you try to save the worksheet a second time, you will see the Save As dialog box.

Workaround    Do one of the following:

• To temporarily get the presentation to not be read-only, you can close and open the presentation again. The changes made up until the first save aren’t lost.
• You can deny Administrator read permissions to the %programdata%\Microsoft\FCI folder by doing these steps:
  1. 1.    Open a command prompt by clicking Start, type cmd.
  2. 2.    Right click the Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.
  3. 3.    Enter the following command into the command prompt:

icacls “”%programdata%\Microsoft\FCI”” /deny *S-1-5-32-544LOI)(CI)R

1. 4.    Press Enter.

If you have applied the second workaround, we recommend you grant full control of the FCI folder back to the Administrator group prior to upgrading Office to the final release by entering the following into a command prompt:

icacls “”%programdata%\Microsoft\FCI”” /grant *S-1-5-32-544LOI)(CI)R”

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I have no idea if these tips apply

**Office 2010 Win 7 64 Some .doc files read-only, can’t be moved or deleted**

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http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_2010-word/office-2010-win-7-64-some-doc-files-read-only-cant/19d9382f-272e-4e16-82b2-b37fd02eba4e

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http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_2007-office\_install/word-could-not-create-the-work-file-check-the-temp/59ab5c9d-2c43-4d07-8c4e-d2299621c676

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http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/officeversion\_other-word/word-could-not-create-the-work-file-check-the-temp/8a184708-ecb8-488a-8438-b7f8d1cdb2c0

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http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows\_other-windows\_update/could-not-create-the-work-file-check-the-temp/ed3f81b9-0b5f-477b-87ae-8b783a4c580f

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Description of how Word creates temporary files (2000-2010)

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http://support.microsoft.com/kb/211632

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http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_2007-word/word-could-not-create-the-work-file-check-the-temp/4614b555-0d97-449e-9acf-87b70214838a

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Disclaimer: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk

Visit the link below for more information on registry back-up:

Registry Back-up Win7: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Back-up-the-registry

Try the following steps.

1. Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > Run
2. Type in Regedit and click OK
3. Locate and then click the following registry sub key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

4. Check the value following sub key:

AppData REG_EXPAND_SZ %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming

If the value for AppData is different, then change it to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming

5. Close the registry editor.
6. Restart the computer.

For more information check the link : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2285187

Somasundaram,

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer.

I just fixed this issue (hopefully not just temporarily) by increasing the disk space to use for temporary internet files:

1. 1.    From Internet Explorer, go to Tools/Internet Options
2. 2.    On the General tab, click the Settings button under “Browsing history”
3. 3.    Increase the “Disk space to use”. It was at 512 for this machine, and I expanded it to 1024 MB
4. 4.    Click OK to exit

This was a Win7 machine using Office 2010 on a MOSS installation.

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This tip only applies when you get this problem when trying to open a saved file, apparently does not apply to your problem.

I keep getting files that I am working on locked for editing. Word only allows me to open them read-only

http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/LockedFiles.htm

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Answer 5

Hi Doug. Thanks for getting back to me.

Yes I can do that, and have already done so. However it does not solve the problem, and now I am scared Word could do that with other docs. I am currently writing, and have hundreds of docs on the go, and can't keep renaming docs because Word is arbitrarily putting them into read-only mode.