Have you tried to convert these documents into HTML format? You can apply different (HTML) rules to the document after the conversion.

I haven't done it before, but you could convert to a PDF and restrict the privileges, I did a quick search and found some trial software that you might be interested in trying out.

http://www.win2pdf.com/products/win2pdf_pro.htm#features

2 interesting responses, some of the files in the archive are in native CAD formats (.dwg or .drw) but these are older drawings that I could probably place in a password protected folder. The later ones are all .pdf files, I'll have a look at the 2 pdf programmes we currently use, it may well be that one of them will allow me to restrict copying or printing.

Hello Nigh,

Don't rely on pdf restrictions on copying/printing rights. Just google "pdf cracker" and you'll find dozens of free programs which remove the protection.

Is the same old story... what an engineer (man) can do, another can destroy it!

Kind regards

I'm not too worried about that, we've had no problems in the past even though our archive drawings are freely available to everyone. This problem was flagged as a non-conformance during an ISO audit so we just need to demonstrate that we are taking reasonable steps to prevent accidental use of an outdated drawing. I don't really perceive the availability of the archive drawings as a problem.

I've never seen a good inexpensive solution to the "use of an outdated drawing" problem outside of relatively expensive document control systems. The various operating systems do not, of themselves, provide the necessary facilities. Fortunately, I've personally never had to contend with an ISO audit wanting controls in place of common sense. Just with the occasional dummy who was too lazy to check on document currency because he had his own ancient stash. (I'd like to see ISO solve that one. )

Probably the best "cheap" solution I've found is to plaster a large "Obsolete" or "Superseded By..." watermark on the face of each document that is available for public viewing. The idea there being that it could be readily removed if necessary for authorized reference purposes. But... if you're going to go to that trouble you might just as well make it unavailable.

Good luck

Hooker

I agree with your comments, we've never had a problem caused by anyone using an archived drawing but we still have to show that they are controlled.

Our PDF printer can embed a watermark but it would be permanent. That would be OK because the only time we would use an archived drawing would be if we had to backtrack on a design 'improvement', in which case the current drawing would be up-issued again or if we had an old unit in for repair when the drawing would be for reference only.

www.locklizard.com --

That's worth looking at, even their free viewer prevents printing, copying & screen grabs.

If they are ms office docs, in 2003 and earlier, you can click tools, options/security and then password protect doc.

Unfortunately not, all of these documents are drawing files stored either as native CAD files or, more recently, as PDFs.

Ugh well as the crow flies you could mirror the files instead.

Hello Nigh:

From what I can gather it seems all that is necessary is to make a reasonable effort to secure the files, obviously nothing is foolproof. I've never used any of that CAD to PDF converters but they are readily available, so you can convert your existing CAD files to PDF if you decide to go that way. If you are interested here is a link to downloads.com listing CAD to PDF converters.

http://www.download.com/1770-20_4-0.html?query=CAD+to+PDF+converter&tag=srch&searchtype=downloads&filterName=platform%3DWindows&filter=platform%3DWindows