High Security Setting

C

Chris

Hi,
I am performing a mailmerge in word 2000 using an Excel
2000 document as the datasource. I find that I need to
have my security setting at low/medium or the merge won't
work. Is there any way that I can set my document up as
being a trusted source in the merge so that I can use High
security and not have the users need to decide to run
macros?

Thanks in advance

Cheers
Chris
 
C

Cindy Meister -WordMVP-

Hi Chris,

I'm a bit confused... Are you getting the macro security
problem in Word, or in Excel? Does the main merge document or
the Excel data source contain macros?
I am performing a mailmerge in word 2000 using an Excel
2000 document as the datasource. I find that I need to
have my security setting at low/medium or the merge won't
work. Is there any way that I can set my document up as
being a trusted source in the merge so that I can use High
security and not have the users need to decide to run
macros?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jan
24 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow
question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :)
 
C

Chris

Hi Cindy,
Thanks for replying. I will post with more info
when I get into work, but (from memory), the gist of the
situation is this:

I am writing an Access/SQL Server .adp database system and
need to incorporate a way to allow users to select and
open both spreadsheets and mailmerge word documents that
are populated with selected data.

The solution I am exploring involves creating a file DSN,
and a .dqy query file. I use these to provide data to an
excel spreadsheet. If the user just wanted a spreadsheet
that's the end of it, and my Access application opens the
spreadsheet. If the user wants a mailmerge document the
word file is opened. This uses the spreadsheet as a
datasource.

I found what appeared to be a nice situation for the
spreadsheet file in that the Auto_Open macro is used to
set the datasource to the .dqy file, so if security is
high this macro does not run(as expected) on manual
openning, but I can programatically open the xls file and
call the macro in code. This has the effect that the
spreadsheet will fill with data only when opened by the
application.(Even with high security)

Other solutions I have come across require me to reduce
the security settings to either low: (Always run macros)
or medium (prompt the user). Neither of these are very
good;
1 Whats the point of having security if it always has to
be set to low to get things to work!?
2 Prompting a user who is not an IT expert causes them to
panic, press the wrong buttons, and generally get upset.

OK, the above solution appears to work for spreadsheets,
but for a word mail merge that uses the xls file as its
datasource it can't circumvent the security.
The mailmerge is handling the link to the xls file and
cannot do it correctly. What I would like to do is to call
the mailmerge in code to get it to open, or somehow have
it trust the word document so that it will still open. I
don't know if there is any way to accomplish this??

Thanks
Chris
 
C

Cindy Meister -WordMVP-

Hi Chris,

It's still not clear to me whether the security call is
occuring in Word, or in Excel. However...
1 Whats the point of having security if it always has to
be set to low to get things to work!?
Office macro security is a "stop gap" protection measure.
Ideally, the user should have adequate AV software that does
all the checking, so that the Office setting could be set to
low. Microsoft never intended for it to be used as the sole
protection against macro viruses.

Otherwise, the macro projects could be digitally signed.
OK, the above solution appears to work for spreadsheets,
but for a word mail merge that uses the xls file as its
datasource it can't circumvent the security.
The mailmerge is handling the link to the xls file and
cannot do it correctly. What I would like to do is to call
the mailmerge in code to get it to open, or somehow have
it trust the word document so that it will still open.
Well, I'd change how the mail merge connects to the Excel
spreadsheet. Apparently, you have a DDE connection; ODBC
wouldn't open the spreadsheet to begin with, so any macros it
contains would be irrelevant.

OR, if what you really want is to connect to the DATABASE
information, Word should be able to connect to the *.dqy.

which version of Word are you working with?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jan
24 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow
question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :)
 
C

Chris

Hi Cindy,
Thanks for your response.

Sorry if I was unclear in the information I gave you. I am
working with Word2000,Excel2000,Access2000 and
SQLServer2000.

The only macro in either of the Word or Excel documents is
the Auto_Open macro in the Excel document.

It is this macro that is causing the security problem. But
only when the word document tries to open the excel
spreadsheet as it's mailmerge datasouce.

The Auto_Open macro wants to run as soon as word opens the
excel document, but is prevented from doing so if security
is high/medium.

Because I am using a file DSN this needs to be set in the
Auto_Open macro in Excel. If ODBC does not run the
Auto_Open macro there will be no data in the excel
document. So this will not solve the problem.

The advantage of having the word document merge with the
excel spreadsheet rather than the .dqy query is that I am
able to use excel to perform calculations and supply the
results to the mailmerge word document.

The digital signature idea sounds promising. How do I go
about digitally signing my macro?

Thanks
Chris
 
C

Cindy Meister -WordMVP-

Hi Chris,
The digital signature idea sounds promising. How do I go
about digitally signing my macro?
You'll want to look this up in the Word or Excel help files
- it's a bit more complicated than a "short answer", and it
will also depend on what systems you have available
internally.

Generally speaking, you'd need to purchase a certificate
from someone like Verisign.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update
Jan 24 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any
follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail
:)
 
C

Chris

Thanks Cindy,
I will look it up.
Regards
Chris
-----Original Message-----
Hi Chris,

You'll want to look this up in the Word or Excel help files
- it's a bit more complicated than a "short answer", and it
will also depend on what systems you have available
internally.

Generally speaking, you'd need to purchase a certificate
from someone like Verisign.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update
Jan 24 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any
follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e- mail
:)

.
 

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