You could unlink the field. Ctrl-6, I think.

Otherwise, you could explore the use of macrobutton fields and autotextlist
fields instead of protection. See
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide...tm#MacroButton and
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/TblsFl...acroButton.htm for more
about macrobutton fields.


"mhburra" wrote in message
...
I have a form set up using fill ins and drop down boxes. I turn off the
shading and the protection after it's been completed because I want it to
appear as a normal document at that point. Everything looks good except
that
there are still gray boxes appearing on the document wherever I used a
drop
down box. How do I remove those boxes so that the document will appear as
a
"clean" document when I send it to someone?