Hundreds of Docs

[quarkrad]

I have a folder with sub folders that contain a mix of mainly .doc and .xls files (there are some ms Project files) - but I have hundreds of files. I need to make them Read Only and know how to do this - for Word, Tools/Protect Document/Editing Restrictions, followed by the password. This is exactly what I want but I cannot do it for hundreds of individual files. Is there a method of doing this in batch mode?

[macropod]

Hi quarkrad,

You can give all of the files a read-only system attribute via Windows Explorer. If that is sufficient for your purposes, it avoids opening and editing the files, which changes their saved dates.

[quarkrad]

Thanks - I should have mentioned, these files are to be ditributed on a CD and read on other machines. This is why I need to make them read-only that is password protected. I can set the attributes to r but it needs to be password protected to stop users changing it back.

[macropod]

Hi quarkrad,

Actually, copying to CD automatically applies the read-only attribute. As for the read-only password protection, AFAIK that won't prevent the recipients simply copying the content and pasting it into another file, modifying the content (before or after copying & pasting), then saving with the original (or different) filename.

[Pecoflyer]

Maybe saving them as pdf files would help one way or another??

[macropod]

If one of the aims is to prevent the content being copied, and you have an app like Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can modify the PDF's security settings to prevent copying of the content - and printing - if you so desire.