Can Save As/Save be disabled when sending document?

[techwriterAR]

Here's the situation. I have an auditor who sends out forms describing corrective actions by email. She has saved her forms as read only. The problem is that the recipient can just do a Save As and then edit the document any way he or she likes. I am trying to find a way to prevent this. Is it possible to disable the Save As/Save function in the form so that the recipient cannot save the document and edit it??

I have searched this site, the FAQs, the Internet and the only thing I find is to protect a form field but that does not stop the problem of simply using Save As to remove the protection.

Any help anyone can give me will be greatly appreciated.

GJeffcoat

 

[CBasicAsslember]

Send as a PDF file.

 

[fumei]

That is likely be the best way.

It IS possible to rewrite the FileSave, and the FileSaveAs commands in the sent document. These could be rewritten to disallow the operation (FileSaveAs).

However, it can be stated flatly, that NO security function like that is going to stop a serious hacker. It would likely stop the average user, but it is NOT secure to a knowledgeable person.

PDF is a fairly secure way to send information/text, but again, if you really want to, you can get text out of a PDF. It is not that hard.

BTW: if you want to try a rewrite of the FileSaveAs command, it is ridiculously easy. Put the following into the ThisDocument module of the document.

Sub FileSaveAs()
    MsgBox "This document does not permit File SaveAs."
End Sub

The document can still be saved - and of course you would want to. But it could not be SavedAs.

Then, when you have made whatever you need to do with the document, you could rewrite the FileSave command, including any keyboard shortcuts. Then it could not be Saved, or SavedAs. Make it read-only....what the heck....

Then of course, since it would be a snap to simply go into the VBE and remove the FileSaveAs rewrite....you have to do a rewrite of the command to get into the VBE itself. Which can easily be done. If you do THAT make sure you write a logic hole so that YOU can get into the VBE! For mine - when I bother to do anything like this (which is less and less), I use a combination of my login name, and a password. Otherwise if someone tries to open the VBE, Word say no, and closes the file. And since it could be possible that the VBE may already be open - which would make the rewrite of the OpenVBE command pontless, I explicitly check and CLOSE the VBE before the document is fully opened. Now the VBE is closed, and the OpenVBE command is disabled. Only the combination of my user login, and a password will open the VBE. So any of the rewrites are inaccessible.

Seems like a lot of work? Yes and no. I actually made a SecureTemplate.Dot with most of this already in it. Can it be broken? Yes, absolutely, although I think it would be beyond 98% - heck 99% - of users to do so.

But again, with all that...there is NO real security for Word documents. Or any documents for that matter. There just isn't.

Toss up. Again, you can disable FileSaveAs in a document. But a good VBA person can get around it. You can send a PDF, but a serious person can get around that as well.

Shrug. Bottom line? No document is secure. Unless seriously encrypted. And even then.......

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[Welshbird]

I'd go with the PDF solution. In fact, I used PDF995 for that purpose on a daily basis (cos if you don't mind it opening it's website as an advert it's free....)

Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[CBasicAsslember]

It wouldn't take a "serious hacker" to disable it. All it would require is saying no to running macros. If I am not mistaken, the default Word install setting for security is high. If the security is set to high the macro will not run nor would the user even be asked. If a document requires immunity to forgery then a pdf with a digital signature is the way to go.

 

[fumei]

A real digital signature (not selfcert) is the only way to go to try and be secure.

Yes, true, a "serious hacker" was a bit of a puff piece.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[combo]

The question is what you would like to do? Disable saving the document, disable change it or be able to prove that the original document was not changed. For the auditor the last case seems to be sufficient, and the digital signature does this. Both word (at least xp+) and acrobat provide digital signatures. BTW, pdf's can be read too!

combo

 

[fumei]

Agreed. What you do depends entirely on what is really, actually, needed.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[techwriterAR]

I really appreciate all the rapid responses!! And yes, why did I not think of pdf in the first place?!!

I continued poking around the internet after I posted my message and found a document on line at:

http://ittraining.1se.ac.uk/Documentation/whatsNew/word2003.htm.

This page describes how to protect a document. I followed the steps and wouldn't you know - it worked. And what's neat about this is that a user can try to save the document under a new name in an effort to get rid of the protection and can't. The protection is embedded in the document itself.

Again, thank you all so very much. I really appreciate your help. I think this is the best place for help that I have ever found. Keep up the good work.

GJeffcoat

 

[CBasicAsslember]

techwriterAR,

I don't have Word 2003 but you might want to try this.

1) Protect a document
2) Open the document in Wordpad
3) Copy
4) Open a new instance of Word and paste

I would be interested if the copy was a duplicate of the original minus the protection.

 

[combo]

I have not tested with 2003 word version, but document protected in earlier word version can be easily opened and edited in wordpad. Moreover, protected document can be saved in rtf format, and this can be edited in other word processors.

combo

 

[fumei]

You can also open it and do a screen dump, then use an OCR to get the text (with a bit of fussing of course).

All of which is to reiterate that no document is "secure".

What was it that what's-his-face of Sun Microsystems said? "There is no privacy. Get over it."

The best we can do is Risk Management - you take the best precautions you can within the context of best situation you can...and move on.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture