'Read Only' Headings

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Philamental - 26 Apr 2006 17:05 GMT

Hello,

Apologies if this has been posted to the wrong newsgroup.

My colleague has a Template Document with a number of Headings that must
remain unchanged, but he wants users to be able to edit the rest of the
document without fear that the Headings are changed deliberately or by
accident. So he wants to make just the headings 'Read-Only' but leave the
rest of the document open to editing.

Is it possible to do this in any way?

Any replies will be welcomed.

Thanks

Phil

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Jezebel - 28 Apr 2006 10:13 GMT

Put a note at the top of the document: "Please don't change the headings"

> Hello,
>
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
> Phil

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Philamental - 28 Apr 2006 10:55 GMT

> Put a note at the top of the document: "Please don't change the headings"

LOL

Probably wouldnt work due to the low intelligence levels of some of our
users, but thanks

;)

Phil

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Jezebel - 28 Apr 2006 12:23 GMT

It will work as effectively as any 'enforced' method you might try. In
theory you could put each heading and non-heading block in its own section,
then protect the heading sections. But you'll end up with a shambles of a
document in which the headers and footers behave strangely; and you'll
*really* confuse novice users. And the power users will defeat your controls
(which is trivially easy) on principle.

>> Put a note at the top of the document: "Please don't change the headings"
>
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>
> Phil

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Philamental - 28 Apr 2006 13:04 GMT

> It will work as effectively as any 'enforced' method you might try. In
> theory you could put each heading and non-heading block in its own
> section, then protect the heading sections. But you'll end up with a
> shambles of a document in which the headers and footers behave strangely;
> and you'll *really* confuse novice users. And the power users will defeat
> your controls (which is trivially easy) on principle.

Thanks for your reply, Jezebel.

I understand what you're saying about putting the 'instruction' on the top
of the page, but I don't think it would be possible as the document is an
official one which will be sent to important clients, and such text would be
inappropriate to send out.

I'll have a quick look into your suggestion about protecting sections, but I
agree that it does seem a pretty OTT solution that may make more problems
than it solves.

When I originally posted, I expected there would not be a simple solution
but I just needed to make sure.

Thanks again for your reply.

Phil

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Charles Kenyon - 28 Apr 2006 19:06 GMT

I hope you are not sending important documents out to clients/customers in
Word format, period. Send them as printed documents or as pdf files.

If you do that, you can include instructions, mark them as "hidden text" and
they won't print or show up in the pdf version.

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>> It will work as effectively as any 'enforced' method you might try. In
>> theory you could put each heading and non-heading block in its own
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
>
> Phil

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Jezebel - 28 Apr 2006 23:09 GMT

Given that his users have to edit the document (other than the headings)
PDFs and hardcopy might not be such a good idea.

>I hope you are not sending important documents out to clients/customers in
>Word format, period. Send them as printed documents or as pdf files.
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
>>
>> Phil

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Philamental - 30 Apr 2006 13:41 GMT

>I hope you are not sending important documents out to clients/customers in
>Word format, period. Send them as printed documents or as pdf files.
>
> If you do that, you can include instructions, mark them as "hidden text"
> and they won't print or show up in the pdf version.

Hi Charles,

The Master Document is designed in-house, made available to users in Word
Format and then printed off when completed and sent to clients as a hard
copy.

Thanks for the reply

Phil

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