Cannot edit Word dox in Dropbox in Windows (but can on Mac)

[squidlady]

I am beyond frustrated. I don't know when or why the change came about. I've been a paid Dropbox user for years and have always been able to edit my Word dox on both Windows and Mac, within Dropbox. Something changed recently on my Win10 machine, I can open a Word doc but not edit it. I tried changing the folders to "not open read only" and that setting won't stick, in the master folder and subfolders. I don't know if that is the issue or not. All files and folders behave as expected on my Macs. The exact message I get when I try to edit is "this modification is not allowed because the document is open for viewing only" - I have changed the "Trust" settings in Windows to no avail. I've got paid subscriptions for everything and this is ridiculous. I've tried everything I can google but nothing is solving the problem.

I even started a new doc on my W10 desktop, put it in Dropbox and tried to edit it. No go, same error. Tried moving the document I need to edit out of Dropbox and put it on my W10 desktop, still could not edit it. I can't think of anything else to try.

Found on a Microsoft website: Go to File-Info. Select Protect Document. Enable Editing. But on my particular "Protect Document" screen, there is no "enable editing" option.

None of my documents are password protected and I am logged in to Dropbox and to Office 365.

Excel documents in Dropbox work perfectly well so it's just Word!

What setting or settings do I need to tweak on my Windows machine, on Dropbox online, or even on my Mac in order to be able to edit my Word documents in Windows, like I've been doing for years?

[squidlady · Accepted solution]

Me again, the OP.

I did not mention that when I was opening Word on my W10 PC, the "ribbon" (if that's still what it is called with all the options (File, Home, Insert, Draw, etc) was not appearing at all. I kept messing around with Word on my PC and somehow managed to get the ribbon back. Then created a file and edited it successrully - so held my breath and opened the Word doc from Dropbox that I need and holy cow, it opened normally, with the title bar/ribbon,  and I was able to edit and save it.

This is all very mysterious and frustrating to me because I don't know how/why the title bar/ribbon disappeared and why THAT stopped me from editing, and don't even know how I got it back. But not having those options visible was enough to generate the very unhelpful  "this modification is not allowed because the document is open for viewing only" message which frustrated me no end. 

This no longer appears to be a Dropbox issue, I so I apologize for posting in the 1st place. Maybe something I posted can help someone else!

So - at this point, I am OK!