Preventing Copying

  • Thread starter Thread starter JonRowland
  • Start date Start date
J

JonRowland

Is there any way of preventing a user from copying the text within
word document?

I would like to do this as certain documents but can't seem to find ho
to do this.

Many thanks

Jo
 
Hi Jon - try locking the document; go to Tools, Protect
Document, make sure "Forms" is clicked and give it a
password that you won't forget (or better yet -- make a
note of it somewhere!) and then the document will be
locked. Katrina
 
This protection is easily defeated, however, as all the user has to do is
use Insert | File to insert the locked document into a fresh blank document,
which removes the protection. The Adobe PDF format offers stronger
protection, but anything users can see they can copy one way or another,
given enough determination.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Hi JonRowland,
Is there any way of preventing a user from copying the text within a
word document?
Click to expand...
Word 2002 and earlier: sort of. Word 2003, pretty much. But do keep in
mind that anyone can make a screen shot.

Word 2002 and earlier: your only option is to protect the document as
a Form (Tools/Protect document). This will prevent the user from doing
ANYTHING in the document but reading, HOWEVER, the user can use
Insert/File to bring the text into another document, and it would be
totally unprotected, there.

Word 2003 has a protection option that will do the job, but other
users must also have that version, or have downloaded a "reader" for
it.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question
or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)
 
If a user can view the file, he can copy the text. There's no real way to
stop it. Even .pdf docs, with copying and printing blocked, can be copied,
by simply doing a screen dump, and running the picture through an OCR
program (OmniPage for instance).

OM
 
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