Lock editing

Note: This article covers lock editing for a file and individual sections. Learn more about locking cells, attachments, or styles.

If you need to prevent people from changing content, you can lock editing in an entire file or one or more sections within a file. Locking editing on a document or section prevents collaborators from making direct changes to text and other document properties. To lock or unlock editing, you need to have owner permissions for the document or section. 

Understand lock editing

You can lock editing for the following file types:

Documents
Spreadsheets
Presentations

The table below shows what's locked and what isn't when you lock editing for an entire file.

Collaborators can still interact with the panels around your document, including Comments, History,
Tasks, and Link Properties. They can also generate blacklines and send reviews.

The content in a locked section can be modified in the following ways:

• Updates to destination links
• Changes to style guides
• Changes to document properties
• Changes to headers and footers
• Changes to page number style

Note: If you lock the entire document, you can't move sections in the outline. However, if only sections are locked, they can be moved.

Lock editing

Note: To lock a document, you need owner permission to the file. To lock a section, you need Owner permission to the document or section. You can't lock sections when the file is locked.

To lock editing:

1. With the file open, go to the File menu in the toolbar.
2. Click Lock Editing in the toolbar.
3. Select the sections to lock. To lock the whole file, select Entire File.
   
4. Click Apply.

You can also right-click sections in the outline and select Lock Section. To lock multiple sections at once, hold Ctrl (Windows) or ⌘+C (Mac) on your keyboard and click on each section before selecting Lock Sections. 

When you lock a file or section, collaborators will see a banner at the top of their document letting them know it’s locked. If you’re a document or section owner, you can use this banner to unlock.

Note: To lock sections based on outline label changes, you can create automations. 

Unlock editing

Lock or unlock files in Home

You can also lock documents from Home or Files. To lock a document, right-click a file and select Lock Editing.

You can select up to 30 Workiva files to lock them all at once. To lock multiple files, you must have Owner permissions for all of the selected files.

Tip: To select multiple files at once you can use the checkbox to select a file, then hold down [Shift] and select another file. This will automatically select all files in between your selections.