How to turn off the reviewing, editing, and view feature?

Question

Since the reviewing, editing, and viewing feature I cannot copy and paste from a read only document. I have to gain access to even copy and paste. My job requires me to copy and paste from upwards of 10 documents. Since word won't let me copy and paste from a read-only or viewing document I have to check them out of our SVN every time. Does anyone know how to turn this feature off and go back to the original word?

Answer 1

Hello, Amy M.B.

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

The point is actually that you do not have the permission to edit this document directly, not how to turn off the reviewing, editing, and view feature. May I ask whether this file is shared with you by someone else? If so, you need to contact that person to remove the editing restrictions against you, otherwise no one else can remove the read-only restriction from that document.

If this document is encrypted with password by yourself, then you need to decrypt it. After decryption, you can edit it directly, and it doesn't matter if you turn off the reviewing, editing, and view feature or not.

Feel free to reply if you have other concerns.

Best regards,

Yuhao Li| Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 2

The file is in my company's repository called SVN. This is where documents are stored and we can lock them out to edit them when needed and see all the changes that were made to the document. Before, I could open a word document from SVN and copy/paste from it to a document I was working on without issue. When word added the editing/reviewing/viewing feature, I have to lock out every document from out SVN system just to copy and paste.

Is that what the feature was intending, not even being able to copy and paste from a read-only document? The document are not password protected, just in locked in our SVN system.

I have been trying to get a hold of someone from Microsoft to help me to no avail. Please help if you can, I would appreciate it!

Answer 3

I agree that this new feature is stupid. When my users open documents from our document management system they are read only by default. Because Word now forces the document to be in Viewing mode they can't print using our print macros which adjust margins and insert letterhead. The option to switch to Editing mode is greyed out. A read only file should protect a document from being overwritten, not make it impossible to copy from or modify without saving elsewhere first! Dumb feature noone asked for!

Answer 4

Do you mean this feature: Easily switch between editing, reviewing, and viewing documents in Word? If this is the case, have you checked if the document was changed to reviewing or viewing mode if you move it into your SVN?

By the way, I noticed that SVN is an open-source, centralized version control system. The most original version comes from this site: subversion.apache.org. As a result, there will be many different versions, just like Android. I don't know which version your company is using, but there should be some options or features in the SVN program which can change the file property. For how to do so, I'm afraid you may have to contact the admin of your SVN program.

I'm not sure if your SVN program will interfere with Word or not, as this is a non-Microsoft program. To verify this is true or not, you can start Word in safe mode (which disables add-ins on Office), and perform a clean boot (which allows you to disable other programs outside of Office). Detailed steps can be found in Open Office apps in safe mode on a Windows PC and How to perform a clean boot in Windows.

Disclaimer: A clean boot is a means of troubleshooting, not a condition suitable for normal long-term use. Some applications may not be able to be used in this mode, please exit them after testing.

Answer 5

The SVN system does not interfere with Word at all, it is just a repository to hold and check out documents. I have been meeting with my IT guys to troubleshoot to no avail. We both have the same version of Word, he can copy and paste from whatever document, while I cant from a view-only document.

How can I go back to the version of Word without these tabs? Again, I cant copy and paste from a view-only document to another one anymore without having the editing feature on. This is very frustrating for my line of work.