shortcut to open workbook as read only? Excel 2000

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I have a workbook that contains data that will be used for mail merge.

Users will be filtering the data before the merge, so I want them to use
a copy of the workbook so the original data is safe.

I know users can select Open As Copy from the drop down next to the Open
button, but it's not obvious to a casual user, so I'd like to create a
shortcut in windows explorer for them that they can double click to open
the workbook as a copy.

Does anyone know if that's possible?

Thanks :)
 
Maybe you could just mark the workbook readonly (using windows explorer).

Or even give it a password to modify (not open).
File|SaveAs|Tools|General Options
is where you'd find that dialog box.
 
Thanks Dave - but that's not going to work.

I don't want the workbook to be read only or password protected. I just
want to be able to open it read only from time to time directly from
Explorer.
 
Your shortcut can have a startup switch to open the workbook as read-only when
that shortcut is used.

See help on "startup switch" and/or "customize how excel starts"


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP
 
Perfect :)

Thanks for that Gord.

If anyone else needs this, the shortcut needs to point to excel.exe with
the filename as a switch:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\EXCEL.EXE" /r
"D:\files\example.xls"

rather than to the file, as these are Excel switches, not Explorer switches.

:)
 
Thanks for the feedback.


Gord

Perfect :)

Thanks for that Gord.

If anyone else needs this, the shortcut needs to point to excel.exe with
the filename as a switch:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\EXCEL.EXE" /r
"D:\files\example.xls"

rather than to the file, as these are Excel switches, not Explorer switches.

:)
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