SP2010

If you’ve ever been in the situation where you try to edit a page in SharePoint and you see this seemingly unchangeable message appear at the top of the page stating:

“Page has been declared a record or placed on hold and is read-only”

Fear not! I’ve seen this message appear and it usually occurs when a user (or service account) is operating as a system account. This could have been set manually by said user if they have access to the web application via central admin:

If this is the case, you can overwrite the system account check in via SharePoint Designer. You’ll obviously need the correct permissions to access SPD beforehand! In the following example I’m using a SharePoint 2010 environment. To do this:

Connect to your web application in SharePoint Designer
Navigate to All Files – Pages
Right-click on the page that is currently locked
Undo checkout

NOTE: You won’t be able to view the individual pages within each Page Library if you navigate through Lists and Libraries. This space is used to view and manage the settings for each list type you have. All Files takes you to the ‘root’ of your web application, where you can see everything that sits under the web application.

This is my first ever blog post…scary! I’ll start with a really easy solution to a problem I was tasked with solving by one of our departments…

Ever wanted to completely remove any reference to the pesky NEW! icon from freshly uploaded documents or list items? Yeah me either…well if in case you ever felt so inclined to do so here are some very simple steps to remove the icons from any new documents or items on a page.

This example is a SharePoint 2010 web application with a standard publishing site collection active:

1. Navigate to the page you want to remove the NEW! icons from and begin editing
2. Add a content editor webpart to the page; I added it to the bottom of the page but you can add it whenever suites
3. Click on the down arrow to open the webpart menu – Select Edit Web Part
4. You’ll now notice the content editor webpart has changed, it will now say ‘Click here to add new content’, click here!
5. In the ribbon – Editing Tools menu – Format Text tab – Press HTML – Edit HTML Source
6. In the HTML editor, copy and paste this little bit of CSS:
```
<style>
IMG.ms-newgif {display:none;}
</style>
```
7. Press OK on the HTML editor
Voila! The NEW! icons have vanished and we can move on with our lives…the next little bit is totally optional, but I think for completeness it makes sense to do. We’re just going to rename and hide the content editor webpart so that it’s not visible and any editors know not to touch it:
1. Click on the down arrow to open the webpart menu – Select Edit Web Part
2. In the content editor webpart menu – expand Appearance
3. Change the Title to ‘Do not delete’
4. Change the Chrome Type to None
5. Press Apply and OK
That is all there is to it, we have successfully removed the NEW! icons so they are no longer visible and also hidden the webpart which contains the tiny snippet of CSS that makes the change.