Is there a way to open a Word document ReadOnly?

[GV1955]

And I mean ReadOnly not just that you must save it under another name.

From what I can gather, Word has the ability to flag a file as ReadOnly.
However, this flag can only protect the original document but does not
prevent the user from modifying it and saving it under a separate name.

I need to make the file readonly with no ability to modify it. I tried
opening it in a WebBrowser but all this does is embed Word within it which in
turn allows editing the file.

HELP! Any ideas?

 

[Cindy M.]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?R1YxOTU1?=,

Word wasn't designed as a "reader"; it's a word-processor. Depending on which
version of Word you're targeting, there are various protection possibilities
(look under Tools/Protect document). But unless you can use Information Rights
Management (IRM), none of them are particularly secure. They can keep the
"casual user" from making inadvertant changes, but not fully protect the
document.

If you just want people to read documents, it's better to export them to PDF
format.

And I mean ReadOnly not just that you must save it under another name.

From what I can gather, Word has the ability to flag a file as ReadOnly.
However, this flag can only protect the original document but does not
prevent the user from modifying it and saving it under a separate name.

I need to make the file readonly with no ability to modify it. I tried
opening it in a WebBrowser but all this does is embed Word within it which in
turn allows editing the file.

HELP! Any ideas?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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

 

[GV1955]

Thanks! That's what I was afraid of...

But the client wants to use Word and that is not going to cut it... Thanks
again!

 

[Lieth]

I'm not sure how but I have read somewhere on a blog that is it possible to
remove the Save and Save As... commands from the menu or overriding the
commands so that you cannot save the document as something else. You can also
remove or override the copy/cut commands so that it is impossible to copy the
document and paste it into some other word document. All this can be made
with a simple ribbon extension xml file.

 

[Cindy M.]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?TGlldGg=?=,

All this can be made
with a simple ribbon extension xml file.

Ribbon = Office 2007, which is still in beta. I don't think
the OP is targeting 2007, currently...

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update
Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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

 

[Jon Kruger]

You could protect the entire document... that way they won't be able to edit
anything.

Look at the Document.Protect() method, set the first parameter for
wdAllowOnlyReading.