Prevent copyright infringement

  • Thread starter Thread starter mikegospo
  • Start date Start date
M

mikegospo

I have a pretty extensive excel spreadsheet that I creat for my clients
It has procedures, forms and work instructions for ISO 9001. I se
this up as a system for my clients. They need to be able to edit th
spreadsheet but I want to prevent them from sending the file to friend
or other companies. Does anyone have an idea of how I could do this.
I guess I need to protect from saving as, they need to back it up.
Could I just imbed the company name into each worksheet and not allo
them to change it some how?
Mik
 
Hi,

You could use something like,

Private Sub Workbook_BeforeSave(ByVal SaveAsUI As Boolean, Cancel As
Boolean)
Cancel = True
End Sub

That will prevent the file from being saved although obviously you would
need to save that into the file with some kind of hidden 'Save' Function eg

Function Save()
EnableEvents = False
ThisWorkbook.Save
EnableEvents = True
End Function

All this means nothing unless the end user opens the file with Macros
Enabled, if they open it with Macros Disabled they can do whatever they want
with it.

You could then be more devious and make the file useless unless it is opened
with Macros Enabled and password protect the VBA code. However these
passwords are easily broken, so this would only protect your file from the
honest and/or inexperienced user.

A company logo in the sheet protected by a Worksheet password? these
passwords are broken even more easily.

In short, Excel isn't secure and really isn't meant to be, the password
protection is only meant to prevent data or formulas etc being overwritten
by mistake,

Regards,
Alan.
 
Sorry, should be

Function Save()
Application.EnableEvents = False
ThisWorkbook.Save
Application.EnableEvents = True
End Function


Alan said:
Hi,

You could use something like,

Private Sub Workbook_BeforeSave(ByVal SaveAsUI As Boolean, Cancel As
Boolean)
Cancel = True
End Sub

That will prevent the file from being saved although obviously you would
need to save that into the file with some kind of hidden 'Save' Function eg

Function Save()
EnableEvents = False
ThisWorkbook.Save
EnableEvents = True
End Function

All this means nothing unless the end user opens the file with Macros
Enabled, if they open it with Macros Disabled they can do whatever they want
with it.

You could then be more devious and make the file useless unless it is opened
with Macros Enabled and password protect the VBA code. However these
passwords are easily broken, so this would only protect your file from the
honest and/or inexperienced user.

A company logo in the sheet protected by a Worksheet password? these
passwords are broken even more easily.

In short, Excel isn't secure and really isn't meant to be, the password
protection is only meant to prevent data or formulas etc being overwritten
by mistake,

Regards,
Alan.
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