“Format > Protection” is greyed out in Visio 2003

Question

I use Visio 2003 (With CaseMap) and when I try to modify my documents, I get the following error message:

Shape protection and/or layer properties prevent complete execution of this command (MS Link)

But the weirdest thing is that I need to modify the protection properties but I can't. The Protection option is greyed out in Format menu. Is there anything that can be done so I can manage these protections?

Kind regards,

Answer 1

There may be good reasons why the shape is protected in this way, so you should keep that in mind, but to answer your question:

I replicated this issue in Visio 2007 by locking the Layer.

As you can see I have disabled by Protection menu via the layer:

It sounds like you are having the same issue.

Here are some instructions for removing the layer locking in Visio 2007. The steps should be similar in Visio 2003

Go to File > View and select Layer Properties

In the screenshot below you'll see that one of the layers (called "mylayer") is locked and one is not. (The shape I drew is in "mylayer") To remove the locking for "mylayer" unclick that Lock checkbox.

Now you can see that the the shape can be modified: