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Jay Freedman Jay Freedman is offline
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Default Document Security

On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:30:02 -0700, Steven Sinclair
wrote:

Is there any way to "protect" a file so that a user would be unable to [save]
or [save as] the document? They could edit and/or print, but not save in any
way.

Thanx.


No, there really isn't any way that can't be easily defeated.

You could write macros to intercept the Save and SaveAs commands and (much
harder) the prompt that occurs when you start to close a document with unsaved
changes.

But if the user has the security level set to High -- something over which you
have no control -- then the macros will be silently disabled. If it's set to
Medium, the user will be asked on opening the document whether to enable or
disable the macros; again, you can't control that.

Even with the macros fully operational, there's nothing to prevent the user from
taking screen shots.

The rule is, once the document is out of your hands, it's out of your control.
Learn to live with it.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
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