REPOST: Trying to embed info in a document?

[Ed]

In years gone by, it was not problem to track one of our reports: it weighed
about 35 pounds and had a cover sheet with author's name, project
identification, report source, and so forth. Now, with electronic
submission, reports are not mailed as a whole massive package, but
emailed one separate section document at a time. It's finally dawning on us
that, while there is still an electronic cover page with all that info,
there are
sections of these reports floating around our servers and elsewhere
that are not connected back to this information!

We are now trying to find a way to somehow "tag" these individual
sections with all the cover page info. But we're not quite sure how to
go about it, given all the possible variations of program versions, macro
security levels, and so forth.


One solution proposed was to create a Custom Document Property in each
report section document that would contain all of this. (How much fits in
one Property? Would we need to create several?) Does this sound like a
good way to manage and track these "rogue" documents? Are there better
solutions?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Ed

 

[Jay Freedman]

Custom Document Properties are an excellent way to manage documents,
provided you can keep them current. One way to do that is to equip the
underlying template with a userform that pops up whenever the user does a
Save or Save As (by firing a macro that's named to intercept the command).

Custom Document Properties can be edited through the File > Properties
dialog or by macros, and can be displayed in the document with DocProperty
fields.

Document variables are similar, except that there's no built-in dialog that
edits them; you have to create, modify, or delete them with macros. They're
displayed with DocVariable fields.

I don't remember offhand whether document properties and variables are
limited to 255 characters or are unlimited. That's beside the point,
though -- I'd suggest creating a separate property or variable for each
piece of information, to make them easier to maintain.

 

[Jezebel]

Document properties are a fine way to tag document files. You can use
custom properties, or even the built-in ones. You can put plenty of
information into them (I think the limit is 32K). Technically, there's no
problem. Unfortunately, these schemes tend to fall for social reasons: it's
*really* hard to maintain the discipline across the organisation unless
you've got someone who owns the document and doesn't permit bits of it to
'float around'.

 

[Ed]

Thanks for your input, Jay. The DocVariables might be the way to go. I'm
hesitant about putting in anything the user can edit out! It seems like it
would be easy to create the variables, then create a front page that would
display these with fields.

One question, if I may: If someone were to delete several pages of a
document and save it as a new name, would the new document still possess the
DocVariables from the original?

Ed

 

[Ed]

Unfortunately, these schemes tend to fall for social reasons: it's

*really* hard to maintain the discipline across the organisation unless
you've got someone who owns the document and doesn't permit bits of it to
'float around'.

Unfortunately, Jezebel, that's exactly our headache! I'm just a lowly
report writer - I get the "feed" from higher-ups, put the documents
together, and give it back to them for distribution. Only the writers are
going to be "disciplined" to ensure information is in the document - the
rest of everyone is only concerned with getting the docs where they need to
go. If something awful were to happen, we might be able to get a
large-scale policy declaration with enough teeth to scare people into
compliance - for at least 3 months, anyway! Otherwise, it's totally up to
those of us think about these things. I've also thought about secure PDFs,
but there's still no way to defeat cut-and-paste!

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate the thoughts.
Ed

 

[Jay Freedman]

Yes, both doc variables and doc properties are stored independently of the
body of the document (that is, they're in a separate section of the file).
Deleting pages or other chunks of text might remove the fields that display
the values, but the values themselves would be untouched.

 

[Ed]

Thank you, Jay. I appreciate the time and the information.
Ed