How do I make a Microsoft Word document “read only” within a SharePoint document library?

Question

How do I make open “read only” the only option within a SharePoint document library?

When using either Word 2003 or 2007 and saving the document as a template or modifying the file properties as “read only” doesn’t prevent modification of the file in a SharePoint document library. Modifying the document library permissions to only allow “read only” access doesn’t work either. What works is to use a SharePoint URL link list to access the files within an external server directory, but that defeats the use of a SharePoint document library.

Answer 1

Save as PDF or XPS?

Answer 2

This is not a programming question.

Answer 3

I don't know if you can force read only to be the only option, but you can implement your own event handler to override the ItemUpdating event. Just cancel the update and any changes will be discarded.

Sahil shows a very basic event handler that performs the cancel here.

Answer 4

why doesn't modifying the document library permissiones to 'read only' allow your users to change/save the document in the document library? That's not right.

Answer 5

The event handler works, but I have found a simpler workaround.

If you “Check Out” the file and leave it checked out, no one else has the option to edit the file. This is still not ideal, but for forcing a document to be “read only” it works.

Answer 6

what if I want the item to be checked out by another user ( i.e. if the item is created by a user ABC, i want the item to be checked out by user XYZ so that even the user who created the item cannot modify it anymore)...what to do? i have tried using "Check Out Item" in SPD workflow activities but it checks out the document by the user who creates the item i.e. ABC in the above mentioned example.