Expiring Office documents

[Guest]

Is there any way in office to set an expiration date for a document? e.g. If
I create a document today, I want to set an expiration date of 5/31/07 so
that if I try to access it after 5/31/07, it won't open.

- MR

 

[Poprivet]

Is there any way in office to set an expiration date for a document?
e.g. If I create a document today, I want to set an expiration date
of 5/31/07 so that if I try to access it after 5/31/07, it won't open.

- MR

No

 

[Jay Freedman]

Is there any way in office to set an expiration date for a document?
e.g. If I create a document today, I want to set an expiration date
of 5/31/07 so that if I try to access it after 5/31/07, it won't open.

- MR

If you're hoping to make this secure, especially if you're sending the
documents to other computers, then there is no way to achieve that in
Office.

There is a way to try to do it, by saving an AutoOpen macro in the document.
The macro checks the current date against the expiration date, and
immediately closes the document if the expiration has passed. But there are
at least three very simple ways to defeat the macro:

- If the user's macro security level is set to Medium, they'll be asked
whether to run the macro, and they can say no. If the level is set to High,
the macro is automatically disabled. There is no way you (the document's
author) can affect the user's security level setting. And when your users
aren't dishonest, they'll always be annoyed by the macro security warning
dialog.

- The user can hold down the Shift key while opening the document to prevent
the macro from running.

- The user can temporarily set the computer's clock back to a date before
the expiration. Word has no way to check the correctness of the clock.

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

 

[Beth Melton]

You would need to use Information Rights Management in order to create a
document with an expiration date:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/office/office2003/maintain/rmsirm.mspx

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Co-author of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/