Need help in ms word

[xenkatesh]

Hi ppl,
One of my friend has a project which is done in MS Word and he want it to be copy protected, not editable document.

ie: he want the file to be open as Read Only.. but when some is trying to use Ctrl + A to select all it should not work they should not be able to select all. And copy paste option in Edit menu should be disabled. In that way the file can be copied but not the content and the content can not be edited.. thats whay exactly he need.. any idea to do that in MS WORD..

please help!

 

[sakumar79]

Word has ability to password protect documents. That is the only way AFAIK you can protect the document from being edited. For how to, refer *www.uwo.ca/its/doc/hdi/email/word-excel-protect.html

Another thought, perhaps each page can be scanned and inserted as images. This will prevent copying text.

Arun

 

[Sykora]

What you're asking can only be done in part. You can open the document in such a way that it is read-only. What you cannot do is disable select all and copy/paste. After all, if the person reading the document is really keen on copying the document, all the have to do is take a screenshot of the window and run it through a decent OCR. Basically, if you allow the document to be seen, then it can be copied, there's no other go.

 

[nil_3]

There is no such option in MS Word, not even in any Word Processor. To disable text copy option(by Ctrl + A) you can create the file as a .JPG image by any image-editing software(such as Photoshop). But file-size will be much larger. Even this can be edited by any Optical Character Recognition(OCR)Software.

However, to eliminate the OCR-edit, you can merge the .JPG files as Slide-show file(by ACDSee). Even then there is a possiblity of edit by Screen-Capturing and OCR-ing but the chance is minimal!!!

 

[Ramakrishnan]

I think you will get solution to this problem as well as a host of other problems by visiting this webpage *wordtips.vitalnews.com/. You may also register with them, for free, for getting a periodic newsletter which will give a lot of helpful tips about MS Word.

 

[xenkatesh]

thx a lot for your reply... could you please check this attchment and let me know how was it done? my friend also needs his project in same way..

 

[tuxfan]

Whats so special about this document? I opened it in OpenOffice.org could select, copy, paste! So the whole exercise has gone waste! OpenOffice.org is free and anyone wanting to copy the document can just download it!

Once you distribute a document, you can not making it un-copiable! Whatever precautions you take, there are work-arounds! However, you can still try to distribute it as a PDF file to make it a little difficult.

 

[Ramakrishnan]

Actually one can disable almost all menu in word using VBA. In the Project settings, passsword is given so that others cannot view or edit the code. In the above file also, the VBA project is unviewable. I have not seen this using Openoffice. If it is viewable using Openoffice, then you can see the code by seeing the macro editor.

 

[xenkatesh]

ya that possible only through other Office applications.. but not ms word.. i knew this before.. but the thing is most organization doest used openoffice...

 

[ilugd]

this doesn't seem to use vba, guys. It has some sort of tools>protect document settings used.
__________
anyways, just saving the files as a text file overrid the protection.

 

[Ramakrishnan]

I have analysed the The attached document and found that it is proteced using Tools>protect. In those menu you will have plenty of options about how much freedom you want to give to the reader of the document.

 

[godblessedson]

You are looking for "Digital rights Management in MS office". What you are looking for is possible through MS office 2003 professional on windows server 2003 *www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/office/office2003/operate/of03irm.mspx or
via some add in tool like
*www.aegisdrm.com/digitalrightsmana...ect_word_excel_and_other_office_documents.htm.....

google the phrase 'digital rights management MS office' or 'information rights management MS office' and get to know what you can do to do the job you want.....

 

[xenkatesh]

thx a lot for your links & replies...