readonly protection on Word files

[adamdunne]

I have a series of Word files I want to be able to display on my website, in such a way that they cannot be downloaded, printed or copy and pasted (I want to charge people to get them).
There does'nt seem to be a readonly attribute in <A HREF=...>
Any suggestions?

[Charles]

Save the documents as PDF.

[robertketter]

Even if you use PDF format, you can't stop people from printing your content.

A person using [Alt]+[PrintScreen] can capture whats on their screen, paste into word and print. Although it will be an image and not text if the information is just research or reading then this method will work just fine.

I suggest you just show snippits of the file then allow access to the entire file only upon payment. Another way is to set up a subscription service via paypal and require a subscription before allowing people access to full file. This way you will receive some sort of payment from people who decide to view without payment. www.robertketter.com if you want more help. Robert Ketter

[the tree]

display on my website, in such a way that they cannot be downloaded

How do you propose that they'd be displayed without being downloaded first?

[felgall]

With a PDF you can lock the content so that it can only be printed using print screen and that the content cannot be copied from within the document without knowing a password (except by printing the screen and then scanning it back into an OCR program. That is about the maximum level of protection that you can apply to web content.

All web content (except streaming audio and video) gets downloaded before the browser can display it.

[Robert Wellock]

Obviously as a bare minimum you place it behind a login form you need server-side scripts.