protect document without track changes

[Huntley Eshenroder]

Hi,

I'm using Word 2003 to create a document or template that is to be
distributed to other users. The document provides the styles and structure,
but no content. Without using forms, I'd like to protect the document in
such a way that it can be edited (content can be added) using the provided
styles.

Proctect Document is very close except that I can't find a way to turn off
track changes. (I actually don't mind that track changes is on, I just don't
want it to be visible.)

Thanks,
-Huntley

 

[Beth Melton]

Hi Huntley,

Use the "No Changes (Read only)" option but mark the areas to be
filled in by the user as Exceptions.

If you want to allow the entire document content to be available for
edit then select the first paragraph mark and add it as an Exception.

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Huntley Eshenroder]

Thanks for the reply. I tried this and had the following problems:

- Selecting the first paragraph mark only resulted in that paragraph
becoming editable. However, there is a graphic and a table
inserted before this mark. The first paragraph mark is on the cover
page, which is one of three sections.
- As a result of the above, I did a select all and marked that as an
exception (a cheap hack, but I thought it was worth a try). This
worked for me (in 2003) but my 2002 users could not edit.

-Huntley

 

[Beth Melton]

Hi Huntley,

My apologies, I took your "no content" to mean that the content in
your template was empty, IOW no boilerplate. So my reference to
selecting the first paragraph was in regards to an empty document.

Selecting all to make all content available for edit is correct - not
a cheap hack. However if you want only data to be entered in the
table then you would mark each cell as editable rather than the entire
table.

Unfortunately, as you found, these features are only available for
Word 2003 users. If you need to share the template then your
alternatives are to use "Protect for forms", "Tracked Changes", or
"Comments". Aside from Tracked Changes (which I wouldn't recommend for
new documents based on a template) then your only other alternative is
to protect for forms. You could insert form fields for the document
content. If you find limitations, such as the inability to check
spelling, then there are workarounds available.

Also, since Document Protection changed in Word 2003 you may want to
consider creating the template in Word 2002 instead. All Word 2002
features are supported in Word 2003 but new Word 2003 features are not
available in Word 2002. Documents can be opened but the results may
not be as expected. Such as in the case of Document Protection - the
entire document ends up being locked/read-only and the exceptions are
not recognized.

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

Thanks for the reply. I tried this and had the following problems:

- Selecting the first paragraph mark only resulted in that paragraph
becoming editable. However, there is a graphic and a table
inserted before this mark. The first paragraph mark is on the cover
page, which is one of three sections.
- As a result of the above, I did a select all and marked that as an
exception (a cheap hack, but I thought it was worth a try). This
worked for me (in 2003) but my 2002 users could not edit.

-Huntley

 

[Charles Kenyon]

If you are unfamiliar with forms in Word, take a look at the links at <URL:
http://www.addbalance.com/word/wordwebresources.htm#Forms> especially Dian
Chapman's series of articles.

One possibility would be to insert a section break before the areas that you
want someone to be able to type and do not protect that section.

Hope this helps,
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory:
<URL: http://addbalance.com/word/index.htm>

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide)
<URL: http://addbalance.com/usersguide/index.htm>

See also the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
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Thanks for the reply. I tried this and had the following problems:

- Selecting the first paragraph mark only resulted in that paragraph
becoming editable. However, there is a graphic and a table
inserted before this mark. The first paragraph mark is on the cover
page, which is one of three sections.
- As a result of the above, I did a select all and marked that as an
exception (a cheap hack, but I thought it was worth a try). This
worked for me (in 2003) but my 2002 users could not edit.

-Huntley