Ubuntu
openoffice.org package

Lock a Presentation in Open Office

Asked by Darren Murphy

I would like to "Lock a Presentation" so that I can send it to someone for viewing but not editing, is this possible?

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
Ubuntu openoffice.org Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
Mika Wahlroos
Solved:
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
wojox (wojox) said : 		#1

Depends, could you create a .pdf and send it to them?

Revision history for this message
Darren Murphy (murenti) said : 		#2

Thanks for suggestion, but its for a customer of mine and I already offered that solution but they don't want it as they want a Presentation type solution.
Thanks again for your help and I am open to any other suggestion please

Revision history for this message
François Tissandier (baloo) said : 		#3

I don't think it's possible in Openoffice. You can protect it with a password, but that doesn't prevent someone to edit it once it was opened.

You have to use Office 2002 and more recent to be able to do that I think.

Or maybe a solution could be to sign your Presentation using a GPG software. The presentation will then have a "side file" containing the signature. If anything is modified in the presentation, the signature won't be valid any more. You can easily create your own key to sign files in Ubuntu, and sign from the file manager. I know it's not as easy as what Office can offer, but that could be a solution. Also, please note that it's extremely strict: if a powerpoint presentation is modified when you open it (not the content, maybe a simple information like "last open on..."), the signature won't be valid anymore. So it's really just an idea, it needs to be confirmed.

Revision history for this message
Best Mika Wahlroos (mpw) said : 		#4

I understand that your customer may specifically want the presentation to open in the presentation software they're used to (e.g. OpenOffice, PowerPoint or such), but if what you and they want is just something that can be easily displayed as slides in a presentation, PDF also allows that.

If you want to try that, select to export the presentation from OpenOffice as PDF. Go to the "Initial View" tab in the PDF export options and select "Single page" for page layout. The resulting PDF should now display a single slide at a time by default rather than a continuous stream of pages. You could also try the "User Interface" tab and "Resize window to initial page" option. Some other options such as opening in fullscreen mode by default might also be useful if you want to go that far. It's of course a good idea to try in advance how the options work in the same PDF reader software the customer is going to use if you go with this option. ;-)

If they absolutely want something they can open in OpenOffice or PowerPoint, you'll have to consider why you want it to be non-editable. If you want to be able to detect possible modifications made to the document, a digital signature would be an option. You can also add one directly in OpenOffice without using GPG separately. If you just want to prevent accidental modifications, maybe you could just add a new version snapshot (File > Versions...). That will allow you to return the document to that particular state later on if it gets accidentally modified, but doesn't guarantee that someone who _wants_ to modify the document couldn't do so.

Revision history for this message
Darren Murphy (murenti) said : 		#5

Thank you everyone for your excellent suggestions, I have created a digital signature but I can't yet figure out how Open Office can see it, so I can't install it yet. The option which I think is the easiest is to create the PDF with the auto selected options as this creates a PowerPoint type of presentation that I think looks identical. My customer wants to use this document to give to his customers and does not want any changes made by their customers, so I think a PDF is the answer.
Thank you all for your help and suggestions.

Revision history for this message
Gary M (garym) said : 		#6

FWIW, I used to use a "pps" extension for shipping PowerPoint files instead of "ppt". This ensured that the file opened by default in view mode rather than edit mode if the recipient had the full PowerPoint installed instead of the "free" Microsoft viewer.

Revision history for this message
Darren Murphy (murenti) said : 		#7

The PPS extension also works perfectly, thank you for your solution

Revision history for this message
Darren Murphy (murenti) said : 		#8

Thanks Mika Wahlroos, that solved my question.