PowerPoint Editing Security

[haz9mat]

I develop Fire Department Training Materials on PowerPoint and I am looking
for a solution to a couple of unique problems. Any assistance would be
greatly appreciated.

Currently my customers receive the .PPT file in its native format and they
are allowed to make changes in order to customize it to their department
(Pictures, Operating Procedures etc.) Since this ability to customize the
program is an important feature I do not wish to prevent this.

I would however like to make it so the image I use for the background cannot
be modified or removed. It contains our logo and copyright info and I would
prefer that it stay there. Is there any way to prevent this from occurring
will still allowing edits to the other information (essentially allow limited
edits)

Secondly, is there a way to imbed any type of licensing requirement into the
..PPT itself? I would like to prevent it from being given away to other
departments that haven’t paid for it. I have found several licensing
products that work with .exe files but if I use any of the programs available
to make that conversion to an .exe file (that I have found) you lose the
ability to make changes. They do allow for a conversion back to a .PPT file
(with the proper password) but once that happens they do not automatically
convert back to an .exe file when it is resaved. This prevents the licensing
software from functioning.

I am beginning to think that there is no way to get around this but I
figured I would toss it out there and see.

Thanks….

 

[Pdek]

Security, copy protection, etc. is definitely a big problem.
I can't think of anything that would allow you to protect one part and allow
changes
to another part, except you might try this (it's clumbsy I know):

For the parts you definitely want to remain unchanged, put in your edit
password.
In this file link to editable companion files that are previously set up and
are not password protected. All the files will have to travel together in
one folder to remain linked. In the editable files you might have links back
to the original file (or these might just be "end show" in some set ups).

None of this addresses copy protection, look up Shyam's copy protection if you
want a good self-extracting .exe style set up. But then that probably would
cancel out the above. LOL, let us know if you figure out something, a lot of
people are probably interested in this and have the same frustrations as you.

Pete

 

[Echo S]

For the background, you could use Format/Background/Fill Effects/Picture for
the background.

This of course means that you would have to create an image of the
background in order to be able to insert it in this manner. To do so, take
an existing presentation with that background, create a blank slide, and do
a File/Save As. Select PNG and save only the current slide when prompted.

Now go back and go to View/Slide Master and do Format/Background/Fill
Effects/Picture. Navigate to the PNG you just created and select it.

This embeds that image in the background of the master slide. It will not
prevent someone from replacing the image. It will also not really prevent
them from changing the image (anyone determined to do so would find a way
regardless), but it will make it a little harder.

As for the licensing, what about giving each presentation a "modify"
password? Each department would receive the password when they pay for the
software. Kinda like a software key/code, although it wouldn't be unique --
and that makes it really easy for one dept to just give the presentation and
the key or just the unlocked presentation to another dept. I suppose you
could create an individual password for each department, but they can easily
change it once they receive the file and resave it, so I wouldn't bother.

Another issue with this method is that presentations with passwords cannot
be opened in PPT 97 and 2000. They can of course be *viewed* with the free
PPT 2003 Viewer, but in order to be able to make any changes, the
departments would need to be using PPT 2002 (aka PPT XP) or 2003.

I hope others have more ideas about the rest of the protection issues, as
I'll also be interested in reading them. I know that my clients don't really
like it when I tell them "No, you can't allow people to make changes to some
of the slides but not to others. You can't allow them to delete some slides
but not others. With PPT it's pretty much all or nothing." (Yeah, okay, so
we've been ingenious to let them make changes to some slides but not others,
but it's not really the ideal situation.)

 

[haz9mat]

Steve,

Thanks for the input. Is there an Addin out there that would accomplish
this or would if be something I would have to develop?

Regards,

Jason