"Branding" a Word file

[Bobby]

I commissioned an e-learning company to produce teaching material for my
organisation (a national public organisation in the UK). I intend to
distribute this material to schools and colleges (at no charge to centres).

We would normally provide this material in PDF format (yuk!) but we have
agreed to provide it in editable (Word) format on this occasion (since
teachers have asked for this format to allow them to customise it).

I'm happy to do this. But I don't want them to completely remove the
branding that I intend to put on the material (probably custom footers (URL)
and a watermark logo on every page).

Is there any way to brand a document in such a way that users can edit the
contents of the document but not change the "background" information?

And can anyone suggest the best (most attractive) way for me to brand a Word
file?

Thanks in anticipation.

Bobby

 

[Jezebel]

Can't be done. If you put your proprietary information in the footers most
users (in my experience) will leave it there, particularly if your terms of
sale include a condition that they continue to show your copyright or
whatever. But there's nothing you can do to force the issue, that a user
will just a teensy amount of know-how can't easily get around if they have a
mind to.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

One thing that can be put in that can't usually be changed without vba is a
document variable. This can be displayed within a document as a DOCVARIABLE
field (which will crash Word 97 when in a header or footer). If people won't
be editing headers/footers it is possible to put a section break right at
the beginning or end of the document and protect the document for forms,
protecting only the tiny empty section. This locks the headers and footers.

Note that this is no more (or less) secure than protecting for forms
generally.

Note also that if the material is being used to teach Word, this isn't
appropriate because even the unprotected part of a protected document acts
differently from material in an unprotected document. You would also want to
apply a spellcheck utility such as that downloadable from <url:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/MacrosVBA/SpellcheckProtectDoc.htm>.

Hope this helps.

--

Charles Kenyon

See the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
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[Tsu Dho Nimh]

I commissioned an e-learning company to produce teaching material for my
organisation (a national public organisation in the UK). I intend to
distribute this material to schools and colleges (at no charge to centres).

We would normally provide this material in PDF format (yuk!) but we have
agreed to provide it in editable (Word) format on this occasion (since
teachers have asked for this format to allow them to customise it).

I'm happy to do this. But I don't want them to completely remove the
branding that I intend to put on the material (probably custom footers (URL)
and a watermark logo on every page).

Is there any way to brand a document in such a way that users can edit the
contents of the document but not change the "background" information?

Not that I know of.

Tsu Dho Nimh