How Word Users Create Secure Documents |
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By: Michael G Ross Posted: 2010-04-03 06:54:01 |
| Paper and PDF document management and branding are one of the five elements of all document management systems. Rubber stamps certainly should not be part of your methodology given the state of current technology. Certainly, electronic documents will, some day, be ubiquitous; but, for the foreseeable future, we are still using paper. Keep in mind that whenever there is a dispute in today's business environment, one or both sides of that argument will be referring to a piece of paper instead of file name on a hard drive.If PDF files are being created, they are most likely coming from your Word document. Creating a simple PDF file is the equivalent of printing the file to paper and making it easily readable (and printable) by anyone who possesses it. To distribute these documents without clear identification as to purpose or intent poses a host of risks -- all of which can easily be avoided.Paper and PDF are often used for review, markup, meetings, drafts and any number of other purposes that we prefer or when we need to use paper. It is then that the first version of the document - coming from its electronic womb - begins the document life cycle. How those documents are identified as to their purpose or intent will determine the risk in the document's lifecycle and to a large degree, that of its "creator."When creating a document, the following should be considered: Who gets the document, what is the document's purpose, how easily is the document misunderstood and how do you convey the intent of the document to the recipient?In the past and to some degree, the present, documents that require complex or multi-line legends often require ordering custom rubber stamps. Self-inking stamps were and still are frequently used for the day to day marking of documents with COPY, DRAFT, etc. At times, these stamps rivaled some book collections and took up their own section of a desk or drawer. In the last few years, information workers used headers or footers to indicate document purpose or intent.An obvious shortcoming of this method of document management is that the font size is usually the same size as body text and often, smaller. Copier technology makes this type of indicia easy to remove and by its nature, it's easily overlooked.This led to graphics in word processors in the form of watermarks and other formats to be combined with the text of the document. Printer manufacturers then followed by allowing users to embed a visible watermark into the printing of the document but this feature was not widely used because of the difficultly in using the feature. While watermarks are far superior to rubber stamps, they still can be easily removed from documents by changing the contrast setting on copiers.Document marking with graphics can be the most effective method of paper and PDF document identification.Word Document Management Using GraphicsImages draw the eye and get attention much faster and more effectively than text. With that knowledge, it is clear that documents should be marked in a manner that is convenient, precluding alteration and concurrently conveying the document's purpose.Microsoft Word has superior tools to effectively carry out this process. The WordArt functions provide a host of graphics that can be inserted into your document. The greatest degree of document security is achieved by embedding a graphic in a document that cannot be removed by a copier's contrast setting and does not affect the readability of the document. |
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