[7 Fixes] To Resolve Microsoft Word Selection Is Locked Error
Unable to modify your Word Document content and frequently getting “you can’t make this change because the selection is locked” error?
Well many users like you find complaining about this because they can’t apply changes in their Word documents.
If you don’t have any clue what to do when Microsoft word selection is locked then go through this post to get easy idea of this.
Go through this complete tutorial to know how to unlock selection in Word.
After unlocking the selection in document, you must be able to make modification in your Word file.
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What’s This Word Selection Is Locked Means?
Selection is locked issue is quiet commonly encountered by Office document users. Although some of the users find complaining about the following error messages that occur meanwhile the locked selection issue.
- This modification is not allowed because the selection is locked.
- You can’t make this change because the selection is locked.
Why The Selection Is Locked In Word?
You can’t make this change because the selection is locked error is not specific to any Word version.
This error is not accused by single issue but it arises due to so many reasons. Let’s take a quick glance over why Word selection is locked.
MS Office application trial versions has limited features for selecting and modification of data.
- Problem In The Document’s Metadata–
If your word document has some visible metadata, then you will get the particular error message each time when you try to modify its text.
To fix issue, you need to make modification directly in the meta data.
- Enabled ‘Content control can’t be deleted’ option–
Content control can’t be deleted is a developer-exclusive feature which prevents certain document from getting deleted.
- MS Office is not activated–
Such type of error also occurred when you are using an inactive MS Office version.
- Synergy Is Hindering Office Applications To Work–
Usage of Synergy application is also highly responsible for restricting selection of content in MS Word applications.
Microsoft word selection is locked issue also occurs because of the Windows 7 bug which comes when certain Office updates is being installed.
How To Fix Microsoft Word The Selection Is Locked?
Depending upon the causes, you can try the following fixes to resolve Word selection locked issue differently.
Method 1. Remove Protection From The Restrict Editing Menu
If any Word file is restricted then it’s clear that you can’t do any task on it without taking the owner’s permission.
Mostly this Restrict editing option is applied to the Word document having the crucial stuffs which shouldn’t be altered by any random person.
To remove this editing restriction you need to assign the right password.
Follow down the steps to remove protection from the restricts editing menu:
- Open your Word document in which you are facing this selection is locked issue.
- Now on the Review tab search for the “Restrict Editing”.
- This will open the restrict editing pane. Now tap to the Stop Protection button.
- After this on your PC’s screen the dialog box of “Unprotect Document” will gets open. In which you have to assign the password and then hit enter button.
- The “Unprotect Document” dialog will appear. Enter the password and you’ll be able to edit your Word file again. Doing this will unlock selection in Word.
- If in case, you don’t know the password then best option is to unlock the Word document using the some reliable password unlocker software.
After this your document is unlocked for being modified. For testing you can either add a new line or delete any existing paragraph from Word document.
Method 2. Use The “Edit Anyway” Option To Unlock Word Selection
Sometimes, by mistake the word document is marked as final. After enabling this feature you are not allowed to do any modifications in your Word document.
Follow down steps mentioned below to disable this marked as final option.
- Open the selection locked MS Word document and then try to make modification in it.
- You will notice that at your document’s top a message of marked as final is appearing. Hit the “edit anyway” button present across this message.
- After doing this you will be able to edit your word document even if it is marked as final.
After making all the changes in your content you can mark your document as final.
Method 3. Activate MS Word Using The Product Key
If you are using the MS Word trial version and its evaluation time period is over now. In that case you need to buy the Product key for unlocking the selection and editing of the documents.
Suppose that you have activated MS Office suit on the PC. But if still the software is requesting you to enter product key then it means you are not allowed to access it.
Either you have to buy the product key from Microsoft or you need to activate MS Office’s copy on the PC.
Once you successfully activate the MS Office on your PC after that you can perform any action on your word document without any issue.
Method 4: Restart MS Word Application (Temporary Fix)
If the issue is happened due to some minor issues then restarting the MS Office application may resolve the selection is locked in word issue.
This method is not a permanent fix but still you have the option to use it as a temporary fix. Utilize the time frame in between the re-launched word file and the error message occurrence to copy complete content.
This trick will definitely avoid the issue. But if the problem persists, then move on to the next solution.
Method 5: Update Or Disable Synergy
Most of the time it is also seen that Synergy is also responsible for such type of word selection is locked error.
Mainly this happens due to Synergy bug which restricts the select-drag option in all types of MS Office applications.
After the release of v1.8.2-stable version, developers of Synergy have also released the patch for its bug. Thus if anyone of you getting this selection is locked in word error message after the installation of the Synergy. In that case, you need to start updating Synergy to its latest available version.
If option of updating Synergy to its latest version is not possible in your case then you can try pressing the Windows key just before making selection in your Word file.
Another option that you can try is disabling software each time when you need to work in the MS word application. If you don’t need the Synergy software then it’s better to uninstall it.
Method 6: Modify Word Document’s Properties
If any element of your Word file is un-editable then probably the issue is raised from the file’s metadata.
Well this issue can be resolved by making modification in the title of document’s properties.
Here is how it is to be done:
- Open your word document in which you are getting this error.
- Hit on the File>info option from the menu.
- On the right side of the screen there is a Properties option when you make a click over it Drop-down menu appear. From this drop-down menu select the Advanced Properties Menu.
- On the opened window of Advanced Properties hit the Summary Now change the metadeta, Title or Subject.
- To apply all the done changes hit the OK option.
Method 7: Repair Corrupt/damaged Word File
Sometime corruption of the Word file also restricts the editing of your Word document. So in that case repairing the corrupt word file gets too important. For that purpose we recommend you to use Word File Repair Tool.
This outstanding software will help you to fix and get back your data from even “the file cannot be opened because there are problems with the contents” error. It is one of the best tools that helps you in repairing corrupt or inaccessible (.doc) and (.docx) files with ease.
It is specially designed to repair & recover corrupt or inaccessible .doc files. It recovers document text along with its important stuff like indentation, formatting, charts, hyperlinks, images, tables, etc.
Steps To Repair Microsoft Word Selection Issue
Step 1: User needs to just select a single file by clicking on a ‘Select File’ option or simply on a folder that contains all word files. They need to click on the ‘Select Folder’ or need to find the file clicking on the ‘Find File’ option.
Step 2: As a list of the selected files is displayed, the user needs to thus make the selection of the Word file by using a checkbox that they want to repair. They need to select all files by marking the ‘Select All’ checkbox. After that, they need to click on the ‘Scan’ button.
Step 3: He/she could easily saw the preview of the scanned file just by clicking on the file in both ‘Full document, and ‘Filtered text’ formats by clicking the tab given on the middle pane of the Window.
Step 4: If the scanned word file sis a*.doc file, then there will an available preview in the “Raw text” format along with the ‘Filtered Text’ formats and ‘Full Document’ and ‘Filtered Text’ formats.
Step 5: For repairing, the user needs to simply click on the click on the ‘Start Repair’ option. Then they need to make the selection of the option for saving their file from the ‘Save Document’ dialog box and thus click the ‘Ok’ button.
Final Verdict:
Hopefully the above guide will help you to fix MS word selection is locked issue.
So now you can make modifications in your Word document content. Apart from this if you are getting any other issue in your word document then you can ask it on our social media Facebook and Twitter pages.
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Steven Telfer is a senior writer at filerepairtool.net. He is a technology expert having over 4 years of experience and loves to write in different subjects like Video Repair, Microsoft Excel, QuickBooks, Word & others. He has a Master’s degree in Computer Application and has solve many technical problems. In free time, he loves to read books and do research work to grow in his field.
