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title: "Open a Document for Read-only Access"
---


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## Purpose Summary

This page explains how to open a Word document with read-only access using different loading approaches.

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Sometimes you want to open a document to inspect or retrieve some information, and you want to do so in such a way that the document remains unchanged. In these instances, you want to open the document as read-only.

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Aspose.Words has the public class [WriteProtection](https://reference.aspose.com/words/net/aspose.words.settings/writeprotection/) that specifies write protection settings for a document. Make a document read-only to restrict editing by using the [ReadOnlyRecommended](https://reference.aspose.com/words/net/aspose.words.settings/writeprotection/readonlyrecommended/) property and the [SetPassword](https://reference.aspose.com/words/net/aspose.words.settings/writeprotection/setpassword/) method.

The following code example shows how to make your document read-only:

{{< gist "aspose-words-gists" "702c287894827f3d4ddd2ca4b170ed45" "open-read-only-aspose-words.cs" >}}

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You can also do the same using the Open XML SDK. At the same time, note that it looks somewhat more complicated and more cumbersome.

The code sample below shows how you can add some text and attempt to save the changes to show that access is read-only. Once you have access to the body of the main document part, you add text by adding instances of the **Paragraph, Run, and Text** classes. This generates the required **WordprocessingML** markup.

The following code example shows how to make your document read-only:

{{< gist "aspose-words-gists" "702c287894827f3d4ddd2ca4b170ed45" "open-read-only-open-xml.cs" >}}

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You can download the sample file of this example from [Aspose.Words GitHub](https://github.com/aspose-words/Aspose.Words-for-.NET/tree/master/Plugins/Aspose.Words%20Vs%20OpenXML%20Words/Aspose.Words%20VS%20OpenXML).

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For more information about Aspose.Words features please visit [Open a Document Read-Only](/words/net/open-a-document-read-only/).

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