One Document for Two User Groups with Different Security

[Guest]

Group one produces a design specification and needs to comunicate some of the
information to group two and keep other information only internal to group
one. Group two does not edit the information. Creating two versions of the
same document, cutting out certain parts and publishing it, would be too
cumbersome. This is true especially when the document changes. We need to
have one document, but make it look like two. Also, we use Word 2000 and
printing the final version in PDF would be fine.

I was thinking of using master/sub documents, but entering passwords for
potentially dozens of files would be way too much work. (This is in addition
to other issues I have been reading about using Masters, thanks to this
community.)

It would be great if this would work like the outline view where one can
"turn off" certain levels with the push of the button. I can't actually use
that because the information "turned off" can still be copied, so copy-paste
won't work. The outline view prints as you see it so that won't work. I was
thinking about writing a macro to delete certain text below certain levels,
but I don't know how.

Please help. Thanks in advance.

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hi GarGan

Group one produces a design specification and needs to comunicate some of the
information to group two and keep other information only internal to group
one. Group two does not edit the information. Creating two versions of the
same document, cutting out certain parts and publishing it, would be too
cumbersome. This is true especially when the document changes. We need to
have one document, but make it look like two. Also, we use Word 2000 and
printing the final version in PDF would be fine.

[..]

yes, the master document feature is not something you would want to
consider (consensus around here is that in 99 cases out of 100, you
don't want to consider using that feature at all ).

I'm sure there are all kinds of sophisticated setups possible for your
case. You could break down the information into individual component
documents, and allow read or read/write access to it over a file system,
a Sharepoint server, etc.

Since group 2 only needs read access, there's a pretty simple solution:
Use hidden text (as in Format | Font: hidden, as direct formatting or,
if possible, through a style). You can then either toggle printing of
hidden text on/off, or set the hidden property of the relevant styles
on/off. And print into a PDF file, and give group 2 access to these.

HTH
Robert

 

[Guest]

Good idea. Thanks! I'll check to see if pictures/graphics can be hidden too.

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Good idea. Thanks! I'll check to see if pictures/graphics can be hidden too.

everything that's part of the main text layer can be hidden. IOW, the
pictures must be set to be "inline with text," then you can apply font
formatting to them. _Bold_, resizing, etc. won't make any difference to
a picture, but "hidden" will.

HTH
Robert