Protecting a merged document.

I have a client who wishes to allow employees to perform a mail merge and yet not be allowed to change the body of the document. Normally I'd do this sort of thing in Access but the client doesn't have the licenses. Protecting for forms prevents the merge. Setting the form as read-only is not sufficient because a particular instance of the merge can be changed. Any way to block changes in the body of a merged document?

Thanks!!!

Word is not designed for the level of security that you can achieve with
Access. Even if you protect for forms, it is relatively easy to circumvent.
However, you could do the merge using a macro that first links to the
datafile and merges and then protects for forms or (prints and deletes).
Also relatively easy to circumvent by blocking macros. However, if it is the
macro that accesses the data file, it may be enough.
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
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"nvchaz" wrote in message
...
I have a client who wishes to allow employees to perform a mail merge and
yet not be allowed to change the body of the document. Normally I'd do this
sort of thing in Access but the client doesn't have the licenses. Protecting
for forms prevents the merge. Setting the form as read-only is not
sufficient because a particular instance of the merge can be changed. Any
way to block changes in the body of a merged document?

Thanks!!!

Use a macro to unprotect the document, execute the merge and then protect
the document created by executing the merge and reprotect the mailmerge main
document.

Dim Source As Document, Result As Document
Set Source = ActiveDocument
Source.Unprotect
With Source.MailMerge
.Destination = wdSendToNewDocument
.Execute
End With
Set Result = ActiveDocument
Result.Protect wdAllowOnlyFormFields
Source.Protect wdAllowOnlyFormFields


--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP
"nvchaz" wrote in message
...
I have a client who wishes to allow employees to perform a mail merge and
yet not be allowed to change the body of the document. Normally I'd do this
sort of thing in Access but the client doesn't have the licenses. Protecting
for forms prevents the merge. Setting the form as read-only is not
sufficient because a particular instance of the merge can be changed. Any
way to block changes in the body of a merged document?

Thanks!!!

Thanks guys you are great - I'll try it!

----- Doug Robbins - Word MVP wrote: -----

Use a macro to unprotect the document, execute the merge and then protect
the document created by executing the merge and reprotect the mailmerge main
document.

Dim Source As Document, Result As Document
Set Source = ActiveDocument
Source.Unprotect
With Source.MailMerge
.Destination = wdSendToNewDocument
.Execute
End With
Set Result = ActiveDocument
Result.Protect wdAllowOnlyFormFields
Source.Protect wdAllowOnlyFormFields


--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP
"nvchaz" wrote in message
...
I have a client who wishes to allow employees to perform a mail merge and
yet not be allowed to change the body of the document. Normally I'd do this
sort of thing in Access but the client doesn't have the licenses. Protecting
for forms prevents the merge. Setting the form as read-only is not
sufficient because a particular instance of the merge can be changed. Any
way to block changes in the body of a merged document?
Thanks!!!