You can unprotect an agreement document by clicking Unprotect Document in X-Author Contracts. This eliminates the need for you to know the system password for removing the protection from an agreement. Unprotect Document is a toggle button under the Access tab, meaning that when you click Unprotect Document, the button changes to Protect Document and the previous protection level is applied. Thus, you can ensure that the document is protected before you share it. This feature prevents the sharing of password among the users and reduces the chance of unauthorized users getting access to the document.

Your system administrator defines custom permissions to provide access to the Unprotect Document button. If you are unable to access this button, contact your system administrator. For more information, see Assigning Custom Permissions to User Profiles topic in Contract Management on Salesforce Administrator Guide.  

You can use the Unprotect Document feature, only when your document's protection level is anything other than Full Access. If your agreement's Protection Level is Full Access and you click Unprotect Document button you'll see the following message: "This action cannot be completed since this document is already unprotected".

When you check-in an unprotected document with any of the Save options, the protection level configured for that Save option is applied to the agreement. If there is no protection level configured for that Save action in the Agreement Protection object, the document's previous protection level is applied to the document.