Protecting a MS Word Document

[meeyou]

I have a MS Word document that I "protect" and share with others and they input info. into specific fields.(I protect the document so that others can not change the settings.) In doing so, I lose the capability to spell check or add bullet points to the document. How can I resolve this? Is there a better way, other than "protecting" the document to achieve the same results but have the capability to add bullet points and spell check the document?

[Paleo Pete]

Save the original copy for a "master" copy and another as a working copy, with a letter or number to differentiate between them. The Master copy would be the protected copy, say it's named info.doc. The working copy would not be protected, and would be the copy used for making changes. It would be named info_a.doc or info1.doc. At the end of the day back up all changes, after being spell checked etc. and simply change the name from info_a.doc to info.doc and overwrite the original master copy with the changed version. Then save again, using the second name so you still have the working copy too. This means a bit more trouble, but you have a working copy that can be changed, and a protected copy that can't be changed. The master copy could even be saved in a different folder to lessen the chance of it being accidentally changed.

------------------
If you had everything...Where would you put it?

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[jd911]

Which version of MS Word are you using?

I have 2000 and I can both protect and unprotect the document. I can also spell check and add bullet points to the document.

If you are sharing this document over a network, you should be able to either specify read-only sharing or place it in a folder and then specify read-only for the folder.