Looking for ideas for a foolproof password-protected template/document

Sarcas · #1 09-10-2019, 12:39 AM

Hi there,

I don't have much experience with Word macro's, and no VBA experience at all. I have experience with scripting/coding/programming on various other platforms though.

In my office a default Word document is used for the daily reports. All (about six) users open the document multiple times a day to add reports. The first person has to open the doc and do a 'save-as' with our particular date-filename-name. The original document is password encrypted (as are it's save-as-copies) since it contains sensitive info.

The original document gets messed up often, because people accidentally do 'save', or accidentally change things in the formats or in the pre-typed texts or do other creative things...

I tried making the document a template (.dotx). This works fine, except that the password is not passed on the the 'save-as''d document. And my users will forget/can't do it themselves. I have spend considerable time explaining how to use 'save-as' and it still goes wrong often.

I am looking for a way to fix the problem without having to explain the users any new way of working... It is a challenge, yes. A way to have the password transfer to the next doc would be perfect. Somewhere I found some VBA code I tried, but Word keeps displaying macro warnings when opening the template, and I know my users with panic, even if I explain what to do.

Any ideas how to tackle my problems are welcomed! Except getting new colleagues. I like them

Thank you for your time.

S.

(Configuration: Office 365 on Windows 10/8/ & MacOS & iOS and Android phones - the doc is mailed daily to teammembers and needs to be readable on all platforms)

gmayor · #2 09-10-2019, 04:41 AM

Foolproof is hardly possible but the following might help
Save the document as a macro enabled template including the following code

Code:

Option Explicit

Sub FileSave()
    If ActiveDocument.Saved = True Then
        ActiveDocument.Save
    Else
        With Dialogs(wdDialogFileSaveAs)
            .Password = "Password"
            .Show
        End With
    End If
End Sub

Sub FileSaveAs()
    With Dialogs(wdDialogFileSaveAs)
        .Password = "Password"
        .Show
    End With
End Sub

Create new documents from it and when the user saves or uses saveas the code will add the password 'Password' to the document.

macropod · #3 09-11-2019, 01:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarcas

The original document gets messed up often, because people accidentally do 'save', or accidentally change things in the formats or in the pre-typed texts or do other creative things...

That's because you're not using a template.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarcas

I tried making the document a template (.dotx). This works fine, except that the password is not passed on the the 'save-as''d document. And my users will forget/can't do it themselves. I have spend considerable time explaining how to use 'save-as' and it still goes wrong often.

If you used a dotm template, you could add a macro to it to apply/require a password on saving. The output documents, could remain in the docx format.

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