Office 2010: Mark as Final

Here’s a quick Office tip that applies to Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

The Mark as Final feature enables you to protect a document to discourage editing. This simple seal of protection can easily be removed by the reader, should it be determined editing is necessary.

Note, this option is not designed to prevent edits, only to ward against unintentional editing. To render the document un-editable use other alternatives (for example, saving the file password protected or distributing a PDF version of the file).

To Apply Mark as Final

1. On the File tab, scroll down to Info, click Protect and select Mark as Final. A dialog will appear indicating “the file will be marked as final and saved.”
2. Click OK to confirm.

When backstage view is active, a notice appears in the status bar, indicating, “An author has marked this … as final to discourage editing.”  The Application title bar also indicates that the file is Read-only.  Reading, printing, and viewing options continue to function, but all editing features are disabled.

To remove the Mark as Final setting and restore edit functions repeat step 1, above. Alternatively, you can click the Edit Anyway button displayed on the info bar in the backstage view .

Cheers!
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Comments and questions are always welcome!

Author: quincy harley jr

Quincy is a technophile, coach and Learning Development expert. He has an extensive legal IT background and is practiced in MS Office application support and product development. As a project leader he has been integral in numerous new application rollouts. Whatever spare time he has, is spent with reading, archery and watching his young sons grow. View all posts by quincy harley jr