I was working on the color table i the text and suddenly all tools around become inactive (grey) once I try to use them.
I try to fix it then info stared to jump out:
“Write-protected content cannot be changed. No modifications will be accepted”
I lost access to very important work.
I will be grateful for assistance.
For that, edit your question (= modify it, don’t use a comment) so that we can understand the issue. Mention OS name, LO version and save format (.odt vs. doc(x)).
You tagged basic. Were you programming a macro? If not, remove this tag.
Describe your goal as accurately as possible, how you tried to implement it, what you were doing when the “tools became inactive” (which ones?).
Remember we can’t see your screen nor your keyboard. You must then give maximum factual details so that we can reproduce your problem.
Thanks,
macOS Ventura 13.3.1
LO 7.5.0.3 (X86_64) c21113d003cd3efa8c53188764377a8272d9d6de
This started as Text document Table problem. First with application cell color with at click almost all icons at the botom turned grey and become inactive. A minute before all worked ok. Naw the same happen with top ikons. Only click outside table bringing colors back. But those in the bottom are disappearing and only click in the table brings them back now in grey state.
I have no idea about programming and do not know how to remove [basic].
Ad whot about this nonsens jumping out?:
“Write-protected content cannot be changed. No modifications will be accepted”
Fixed that for you.
You didn’t loose access. You were not allowed to change this document. You could copy the contents to another (fresh) document. It may be a bit complicated not to copy also the protection, but your content is available.
.
At your level of knowledge I suggest to create additional backups very frequently.
Select menu Format - Sections, and look for a section for wich [x] Protect is set (it will sport a closed lock icon). Unmark [ ] Protect.
Format - Sections is not active, grey color.
Since we have absolutely no idea about your document contents/structure, we only guess. “Write-protected content” is generally related to auto-generated data like TOC or index. It may also occur in “document sub-parts” like sections, hence @LeroyG’s suggestion. Format>Sections is grayed out when the cursor is not inside a section.
If you want useful help, Attach a reduced copy of your original document: remove text until you trigger “… can’t be changed …”. This will be a sample we can analyse.
Some cells in the table are protected.
Select the table and then choose Table ⟶ Unprotect Cells
@cwolan gave you the solution.
A comment about your document: everything is manually formatted. Learn how to use at least paragraph and character styles. Nothing in a document should be under Default Paragraph Style. This style has a special configuration role: it sets the attributes you want to be shared/common among all other styles. Thus if you change something in its definition and you use it for your main discourse, you may be surprised to see that your headings also change.
Your table is complex with “areas” of varying sizes containing homogeneous data. You chose to spread this data over several cells, with manual typing. Instead you should have merged the basic cells into a single one (or perhaps two: one for the title, the second for data). The data would be made of a single paragraph (with linebreaks) or of 3 paragraphs with their own style: one for the town/river, one for longitude, one for latitude. You can request that data be vertically centered in a cell.
A well-behaved document contains absolutely no empty paragraph (nor spaces for positioning). Vertical spacing can be adjusted either through cell property or paragraph style property, which guarantees layout uniformity over the whole table and document.
Click on Unprotect Cells works only for one time and returns back to block.
Did you save after unprotecting? If you don’t save your modification, expect the document to behave as before.
…the cells selected. So, select all the table, then Unprotect Cells.
Is it possible to make table with some cell broders not visable?
Select the cells, right-click and Properties. Go to Borders tab. Disable the unwanted borders.
Depending on the complexity of the design, you may have to proceed in several steps (e.g. since borders are added at the periphery of a selection, you have to also act in the second step on the cells adjacent to the first selection).
I do know about that, but gray with lines (inside selected box of cells) can’t be 0 or 0.01 pt. They always stay gray and Border color change do work at random - changing only some of them.
Moreover using instead very rough linespacing in each box works at random as well - Align center seldom result in the center. Using Align Top or Bottom to correct it usually do not fix that problem.
There are non-printing formatting marks for tables that are visible by default. If you don’t want to see them the click View > Table Boundaries to unhighlight the icon.
On screen, you have table/cell boundary clues which are not controlled by Table>Properties. They can be disabled by View>Table Boundaries. But, as usual with sophisticated documents, I always recommend not to disable these clues.
If you can’t tame spacing in cells, this is probably because you manual format your data. Direct formatting is very hard to master, though newbies tend to think it is “intuitive”, and results quickly in “formatting hell”. Assign a paragraph style (or several if you target semantically different data) to your cell contents and clear any direct formatting. Be aware there is interaction between cell alignment property and paragraph spacing. Direct formatting, tab or space characters will always impact global alignment.