Un-edittable Word File Linked from Intranet

[nevets2001uk]

I'm working on improving a Intranet system and one of the new sections will provide users with the ability to view a large online procedure manual.

This is currently held in Word format and viewed in printed form. I need to be able to link to the individual documents which are stored on a fileserver and are updated by many people, but once the link opens the document should be viewable only.

I need to user not to be able to edit and save the document. I have been asked to look into a way of converting the documents on the fly into PDF format. Is this possible. The original word document needs to remain in that format for edittng however.

Any ideas on a solution or any other ways to achieve a similar result??

Thanks

Steven Gordon
IT Techncian

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

Hi Steven,

I had a similar parameter against which I had to code.

I used Visual SourceSafe to store all the files. People could check 'em out or check 'em in and edit them as they saw fit. If you're not using something like this, might I recommend it -- or at least some other kind of document-control system? You may find it really handy.

Then, I had my own project which contained all the HTML files for the internal web, plus a directory called "Referrals" which contained shares of all the various Word, Excel, etc. files in VSS. A share is an image of a file that exists somewhere else in the database. Change the Master file and the Share changes, too.

I do a Get-Latest-Version each day, placing the files into a network directory that is read-only. Yeah, they can edit the files when they read 'em through the network, but they can't save 'em anywhere useful -- the directory forbids it.

Updating the site takes about ten minutes, mostly for those 4G of Referral files to copy (I copy the site to a transition/test area on my local machine before bulking it over the network). So, although I catch every update automatically every day (no one freakin' tells me when they update the various documents!), I can also do a special update upon request in less time than it would take to drink a bottle of Dr. Pepper.

Any help?


Edward

Like Lovecraft? Know Photoshop? Got time for the Unspeakable?

http://www.petting-zoo.org/Movies_Dreamquest.html

 

[palbano]

I need to be able to link to the individual documents which are stored on a fileserver and are updated by many people, but once the link opens the document should be viewable only.

If by “link” you mean a web paged viewed in a browser there is no way a user can modify the original file on the server just by having a “link” in a web page. That’s just not how Web Browsers work.

-pete

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

I agree with you, pete, but what happens with me is that IE opens up a *.doc file using Word. This is very helpful most of the time, but it means that a pseudo-canny user can then edit the file merrily and save it locally, or back out on the network. Once IE has handed it off to the helper application, it's as if IE just washes its hands of the whole deal, much like a mother who discoveres that her son did in fact eat thirty-seven people when snowed in during a winter retreat up Mount Ranier.

This is why I suggested a read-only directory to Steven (and why I now avoid Mount Ranier in the winter).

Oh and Steven, if you have access to VSS, then you can tell it to automatically assert Read-Only status to all files that have been Get-Latest-Copy'd out.

Cheers,


Edward

Like Lovecraft? Know Photoshop? Got time for the Unspeakable?

http://www.petting-zoo.org/Movies_Dreamquest.html

 

[palbano]

>> or back out on the network.

You mean like back to the original file on the Web Server? Nasty! Network Users should not have access to the file system on the Web Server at all! That's a giant Security hole.

-pete

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

Well yeah, if you've actually set up a genny-wine Web Server. Steven's probably got that going on. But some folks just throw HTML pages on the server. That can cause trubble.

Cheers,


Edward

Like Lovecraft? Know Photoshop? Got time for the Unspeakable?

http://www.petting-zoo.org/Movies_Dreamquest.html

 

[nevets2001uk]

At the moment it is not a real webserver which we are running. The HTML docs are simply stored in a restricted folder on a widely available network drive.

Not the best solution i know. But I have to work with what's available. The word documents are stored else where on the same network drive.

So basically im trying to avoid the users (as edward said) being able to save the files off locally and work with them there. Hense the idea of possible converting them on the fly at the time of viewing.

Steven

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

Converting them on-the-fly? Yeah, that seems dicey at best.

When I helped one manufacturer convert to online docs, we realized that people saved things to their hard drive for a few basic reasons:

1. It was more convenient than looking it up each time

2. They could

Obviously, there are technological limits to how well we can control point 2. Even if you created PDFs, they could still save 'em.

We were trying to achieve ISO-9002 certification on our documentation serving, so whatever we would do to avoid people copying files locally was a Good Thing.

Eventually, we moved to HTML-based documentation. Yeah, people could still save things on their local machine, but it looked and acted like crap because all the links -- which were relative -- broke. This is what we wanted, indirectly: a disincentive for saving things locally.

We decided that there was only so much we could do for point 2, but that we could do more for point 1. I suggested that everyone who had previously possessed large filing cabinets full of diagrams and instructions instead be given a computer with a web browser and access to that portion of the network (the owner mildly freaked and basically suggested that everybody would immediately be eye-raped by all the porn scraming around the Internet, so this was an uphill battle). I set all web browsers (small company) to the top level of the Systems Documentation as their home page and put links in their bookmarks.

A lot of our documents were Word documents and the only thing I could do with those was be sure that the files were read-only and that they were in a read-only portion of the network.

I tried futzing with the browser settings, but really, browsers are designed to copy files over. So instead, I focused on making the online versions easier to reach and easier to use. Every couple of weeks, I sent out update notes, including a brief explanation that we must -- in order to preserve our certification -- only retrieve documents from the network and must not print documents or store them locally. I did my best to make it easy to comply with the regs.

Anyway, I hope that helps. It was by far the simplest solution and didn't have too much in the way of detriments.

Cheers,


Edward

Like Lovecraft? Know Photoshop? Got time for the Unspeakable?

http://www.petting-zoo.org/Movies_Dreamquest.html