After you help to protect a document by selecting No Changes (read-only) or Comments in the Protect Document task pane, you can designate parts of the document to be unrestricted. You can also grant permission for specific individuals to change the unrestricted parts of the document.

  1. On the Review tab, in the Protect group, click Protect Document, and then click Restrict Formatting and Editing.

    word ribbon image

  2. In the Protect Document task pane, click Stop Protection.
  3. If you assigned a password to help protect the document, in the Unprotect Document dialog box, type the password.
  4. Select the parts of the document that you want to be unrestricted.

    For example, select a block of paragraphs, a heading, a sentence, or a word.

  5. Do one of the following:
    • To allow anyone who opens the document to edit the part that you selected, select the Everyone check box in the Groups list.
    • To allow only particular individuals to edit the part you selected, click More users, and then enter the user names. Separate the names with a semicolon. Click OK, and then select the check boxes next to the names of the individuals that you are allowing to edit the part that you selected.

      Note If you select more than one individual, the individuals are added as an item to the Group box, so you can easily select them again without having to select them individually.

  6. Continue to select parts of the document and assign users permission to edit them.
  7. Under Start enforcement, click Yes, Start Enforcing Protection.
  8. Do one of the following:
    • To assign a password to the document so that users who know the password can remove the protection, type a password in the Enter new password (optional) box, and then confirm the password.
    • To encrypt the document so that only authenticated owners of the document can remove the protection, click User authentication.