I was helping a client the other day with forms and noticed that the
'unprotect" option was causing major problems. Instead I turned on the Forms
toolbar and used the icon that looks like a lock. It performed much better.
Give that a try.

"Jon R" wrote:

I have used the Protect option in Word (Office 2003) in order to protect the
forms I have created. I saved the document and closed it. On coming back to
the document and opening it I noticed that I could not make any changes, even
in the text and check boxes. I went to the Tools menu to unprotect the forms
only to find that the "unprotect document" button is grayed out? I cannot
unprotect the document and therefore it looks nice but is useless.

I have tried opening the document as a read-only and as a read-write
document without it making a difference.

I am stuck - do I need to start all over again?