Can you create word document that can not be altered?

[Guest]

Can you create a secure word document that can be emailed to another party
that they either can NOT alter, or can alter but any revisions will show.
"Track changes" is not sufficient, since it can be turned off. I would
normally PDF such a document, but it is not an option in this case.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Can you create a secure word document that can be emailed to another
party that they either can NOT alter, or can alter but any revisions
will show. "Track changes" is not sufficient, since it can be turned
off. I would normally PDF such a document, but it is not an option
in this case.

No, that is not possible.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Guest]

Hi Lisa,

Choose Tools | Protect document...
Check option 2 in the task pane that appears and choose either the 1st, 3rd
or 4th option in the dropdown list (read only, track changes or forms - since
I use a Dutch version of Word I don't have the exact English terms available).
When you click the button in option 3, you can provide a password.

This should do the trick.

Success,
Cooz

 

[Graham Mayor]

*Any* document (including PDF) can be tampered with and a modified facsimile
produced.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

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[Jay Freedman]

Unfortunately, it's trivially simple to get around this so-called
protection. If the document has legal or commercial significance -- the
usual reason for wanting to protect documents from alteration -- the answer
is that Word can't protect it. Word's protection serves only to prevent
_unintentional_ changes, not to prevent a determined adversary from hacking
the content.

A good rule to remember is that if someone can see your document, they can
produce an altered version, even one that can't be proved to be "not the
original". The only question is how much work they have to do to achieve it.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Opinicus]

Can you create a secure word document that can be emailed to another party
that they either can NOT alter, or can alter but any revisions will show.
"Track changes" is not sufficient, since it can be turned off. I would
normally PDF such a document, but it is not an option in this case.

About the only way I know of is to use a utility (like Snagit
http://www.techsmith.com/) to print the document to a graphic file. That
would be very difficult--though not completely impossible--to alter without
it being noticed. Including a watermark in the printed document would raise
the difficulty of alteration another notch or two.