How to Unlock a Read Only PowerPoint Presentation (in 4 Steps)

Written by Darlene Antonelli, MA

Last Updated: December 29, 2021

If you see text in a banner that warns you the file is read-only, the original author marked it as final and discourages editing. This wikiHow will teach you how to unlock a read-only PowerPoint manually. Otherwise, you can click Edit Anyway within the banner.

Steps

Download Article

You can open PowerPoint from your Start menu or Applications folder, then open the project by going to File > Open. On the other hand, you can also right-click the file in either your file manager or Finder and select Open with > PowerPoint.
You'll see this in the editing ribbon above the document space with Animations and Home.

Advertisement
3
Click Protect Presentation. You'll see this with an icon of a lock to the right of the Info menu.
- A menu will drop down from the lock icon.
4
Click Mark as Final. Clicking here will undo the lock and remove the presentation protection.
- The "Read-Only" text is gone from the title and the yellow banner will disappear, which means you can edit the PowerPoint.^{[1]
  X
  Research source}
- To return the file to read-only, repeat the process to select "Mark as Final."