Form loses protection when moved to web

[redsanders]

My intent is for a user to open and fill in a Word form from our web, then print the form. The user should not be able to alter the form before printing. I created a document containing a form in Word 2000, password protected the form, copied and pasted it into a web, created a link to the document (that is now in the web site). However, when a user opens the document in IE6, one of the options in IE6's "Tools" menu is "Unprotect Document"
allowing the user to unprotect the form and alter before printing. Is there a way to maintain the protection??

 

[rmikesmith]

redsanders,

Perhaps this is obvious, but if a user clicks on "Unprotect Document" does he not get the password input dialog, and therefore needs to know the password you used? Having this option show up on the Tools menu is normal behavior when running Excel directly under Windows so I would not be surprised to see it when launched from a website.

Hope this helps.
M. Smith

 

[redsanders]

This is what I thought would have happened. But no dialog appears. Apparently, the browser opens up the form as if it is in Word, thereby altering the menu to be that of Word's. Of course, the actual document is not being changed by the user, only a copy sent to them by the server via the browser. But, still, I did not want them to be able to change the form, thus the use of a password protected lock. Has me stumped.

 

[rmikesmith]

redsanders,

First, I apologize for not reading your post a little more closely. I had it in my head you were talking about Excel. Sorry. If I make a dummy form in Word, password protect it (for Forms) then open it from my browser (IE5.5), I get the Word menubar, as you describe. If I select Tools/Unprotect Document, the password dialog appears. So, when accessing the form from a webpage, it is behaving in a different fashion. Since I have no experience with this, hopefully there are other Tek-Tips members who do and can shed some light on this.

Regards,
M. Smith

 

[rmikesmith]

An update. I duplicated your setup: I uploaded the protected form I created to my webpage, then clicked on its link. The form loaded into IE, which displayed the standard Word main menubar. When I selected Tools/Unprotect Document, the password dialog appeared. I don't believe this makes a difference, but I used Word 97 and IE 5.5. Given all this, I really don't know what is going on in your case. While waiting for other ideas, try re-setting the password on your original document, saving, then uploading to your web.

Regards,
M. Smith