Raymond said:
Does anyone know of code that can be attached to an MS Word 2007
Document that will restrict the document to only being printed one
time? We want a certificate that can printed one time with the
instructor's name but not to allow them to print it multiple times.
Thanks in advance.
Raymond
I think you're asking the impossible. The only way Word has of imposing such
a restriction is to write a set of macros (FilePrint and FilePrintDefault)
that intercept the print commands. On the first printing, the macros would
set a document variable to indicate that it has been printed, and force the
file to be saved. The macros would look for that variable and, if it's
present, refuse to print.
There are two things wrong with this scheme if the users can't be trusted
not to tamper with it. First, it's simple -- indeed, it's the default
behavior -- to disable all macros that are stored in any document. (That's
to make life harder for virus writers.) So most likely your macros won't run
at all, and the scheme is busted.
Second, even if the macros do run and refuse to print, an unscrupulous user
can just take a screen shot and print that; or save the document in RTF
format, which strips out all macros; or any of several other ways around
your scheme.
--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
