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"You Can't make this change because this selection is locked" how do I unlock?

Anonymous
2020-11-17T19:56:58+00:00

I can't find anyone with my specific situation. Other documents work fine but this document for some reason is locked. How do I unlock it? I saw other posts saying to go to File then Account, but there is no "Account" option under "File." 

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Bob Jones AKA CyberTaz MVP 432.2K Reputation points
    2020-11-17T21:56:04+00:00

    The two most common causes of the "selection is locked" message are (1) an unactivated version of Office [apparently not your issue since the problem is with only the one file] and (2) a document that is protected in some way, usually for forms using legacy form fields.

    You can try going to Tools> Protect Document but if a password has been applied it will do no good. Also, if the protection was applied in a Word for Windows PC edition of the program you may not be able to remove the protection on a Mac... PC Word has much more robust internal document protection components.

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-11-20T14:37:19+00:00

    I went to protect document but it only gave me an option to enter a password. Yes it seems to only be with this file, I can't figure out how to unlock it still

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  2. Jim G 134K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2020-11-20T16:59:10+00:00

    Hi

    Do you have the password that was used to lock the content?

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