Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
It's not possible to completely prevent files from being copied or printed, although you can make it more difficult. I'll look at why.
How do I protect a Word document from being copied or printed? I have Microsoft Office 2003 student package with a Windows Vista 32-bit operating system. I have tried clicking Protect Document in the Tools menu. It only protects it from not being modified, but it does not prevent it from being copied or printed. I also tried with Prepare, Mark as final, but that also does not prevent it from being copied or printed. I have tried converting my document to pdf but the receiver also can copy or print it.
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The super-short answer is that you cannot.
Questions similar to this are so common that I want to review why you cannot, and even go so far as to detail why so many of the suggested approaches simply won't work.
This applies not just to Word documents, but to any digital document or file.
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If you can see it, you can copy it
Any file that can be read can be copied.
As far as the computer is concerned, a copy is really just one kind of read operation. The difference is that instead of displaying the file's contents on the screen, those contents are written to a new copy of the file.
So if the file can be viewed, somehow it can be read, and if it can be read, it can be copied.
Even if the file couldn't be copied for some reason, or it required a password to open so that the file couldn't be displayed on a screen, there are still plenty of workarounds.
For example, because the Word document can be read on screen, someone could take a series of screen shots†, and then re-assemble them into images that reproduce the entire document. One could even then go so far as to run optical character recognition on the result to re-assemble an editable Word document.
If you can copy it, you can print it
Printing is an interesting scenario.
Some tools can be configured to disable printing of a document that they produce or manage. For example, PDF files can include an indicator that printing should not be allowed.
Of course, the problem is that as we've seen that it's quite possible to copy the document in several ways, and in doing so, change the format. Or perhaps, open the document in an otherwise compatible tool that simply doesn't respect the "do not print" flag.
And once again, if it can be seen on screen, one could take a screen shot, and then print the screen shot. Do that enough times and you can print the entire document.
It may not always be easy - meaning that "do not print" might at least make it more difficult to print - but it'll still be possible, no matter what.
What good is "Protect document"?
Various forms of "protect document" features do various things, but in general, they boil down to protecting the original document, or a copy, from being modified.
And that's it.
(I don't believe a "Mark as final"-type of feature even does that, but it simply sets an informational status of some sort.)
The file can certainly still be copied and printed. It's not that kind of protection.
Mostly because that kind of protection can't be done.
If you can see it, it can be copied, somehow.
Which, coincidentally, is also a concept that the movie and music industries are having a tough time coming to grips with.
† Yes, print screen could have been disabled. Even then, it doesn't take much of a digital camera these days to "copy" the screen in a way that could be used for nearly the same purposes.
Article C4935 - September 17, 2011 « »
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
September 21, 2011 12:29 AM
It seems from all that's been said that the best (probably only) way to protect the file is to hide it using a tool like TrueCrypt. If the file can't be located or seen, it can't read, and so on.
Great article!
September 21, 2011 7:39 AM
@John
Truecrypt certainly would prevent people printing or copying, but it would also prevent people from reading or even seeing the file, so it wouldn't help much in this case.
September 24, 2011 12:13 PM
How about marking it with a watermark? Would that help???
24-Sep-2011
February 6, 2012 6:58 AM
Hi Leo.
Could this approach be feasible? Using a screen capture program, take a "photo" of each page of the document in question & save as jpg (or any other format) then using an image editing software (Gimp or any other ones) place a clear transparent layer over it.
I would be interested in your comment. Thank you for a wonderful E-Letter.
Best regards.
A .
February 6, 2012 7:47 AM
@Annik
That would sort of work. No need for the clear transparency as you've already created a graphic. No one would be able to cut and paste the text out of the graphic and steal the content. But they could just as easily steal the whole graphic.
Your biggest problem is going to be readibility. Depending on your resolution printing the graphic could also have bad results. To do a screen shot of an entire page you will have to reduce it to the size of your screen. That sure sounds like a lot of work.
Another good idea would be encryption. Leo did a whole webinar on that which you can access from this page: Encryption Webinar
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