Open a document so a read-only user can make changes in Word

drivingforce
drivingforce used Ask the Experts™
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Hello,

I have a SharePoint 2010 Foundation server set up with a document library full of standard forms for our business.  When a user that has read-only access to the library opens a document it appears in Word as a read-only document.  

Is there any way a change can be made to allow the documents to open in an editable state?  Permissions should already block the users from saving the documents back to the library.

The end goal is to allow our users to access things like cover pages for faxes, fill them out, print them, even save them to their hard drive if they want but block users from saving the documents back to the library.

Thanks!
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jjester1

Commented:
They can click "Save as" and save it locally, then they can change it.
drivingforce

Author

Commented:
That's something we've explored but we'd prefer not to have the documents saved locally if we can avoid it.

Is there any other way?

Thanks!
Eric
GrahamSkanRetired
Top Expert 2012

Commented:
The documents should be used as templates, i.e. use File/New, to create an editable document.
Commented:
You can create a new content type for each word doc (faxes etc....) and create a separate doc library for each type. Fax library, other library etc... Then, you can have the user create a new doc every time they want actual info in it by adding a new doc in the library. Now you can give them write access to each new doc they create/add and they can add things to that doc without changing the content type template. In other words, when the next user comes by, instead of editing an existing doc in the library and thereby leaving their changes behind on the doc, they would create a new one where the info is blank according to the content type template and they can enter whatever they want. The downside is that users would have to create a new fax doc every time they want to print a fax (takes 2 seconds). also, you will have copies of all of the fax sheets created, each with different data, but that might not be a bad thing as now you have a history of fax sheets that supposedly went out. You can also create a view that does not show any of the existing docs in the library, thereby clueing the user that he needs to create a new one rather than editing an existing one  .

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