How do I protect/lock a form in Word 2007/2010 without losing spellcheck?

Question

Locking a form in Word 2007 and 2010 loses a lot of important features, most notably spellcheck. How do I lock a form so users can only edit the Content Controls, without sacrificing any other features?

Answer 1

You'll need the Developer tab showing in the ribbon to do this, but if you've got this far, you probably already do.

First, make sure you've only constucted your form using content controls (i.e. no legacy controls from 2003 or earlier).

Second, don't protect it using Restrict Access - select everything you want to protect and Group it instead - this is an option in the same section of the developer tab you used to create your form.

This will stop all of the document from being accidentally edited, except for content controls, and retains spell check.

The disadvantage of this method is it's not password protectable like true Restrict Access, so a user could just ungroup the elements again; but generally it will achieve what you want it to, and ungrouping is advanced knowledge that the majority of general users wont have anyway.

Source