>>Can anyone tell me the syntax I need to make a merged document come up as read only? I don't want to make the original document read only, just the newly created merged one.
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>I'm not sure you can do that unless you save it, close it and reopen it as read-only. However, Word's definition of "read-only" isn't terribly meaningful anyway. It means that you can't resave to the same file. It doesn't prevent editing and it doesn't prevent Save As.
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>Tamar

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Tamar,

I kind of figured by the way word is setup with their "readonly" that it would not block you from changing it. I guess I was hoping that someone figured out a work around based on what word does offer in this sense. What I am trying to do is use pre-created forms with a data source located locally and update the data source (comma delimited text) depending on what record they are on then pull up the selected document, perform the merge, and give them the ability to print it, but I only want to give the secretarial department the ability to modify before printing. Is there any way in word that one could block any changes in the original form (aside from the merge fields, which would allow them to be changed when the merge is performed) and have that take effect on the newly created merged document? Or is there any way to maybe display the print preview and as soon as the print preview is closed, have it close the newly created merged document? I think this would give the result I want. If I get time, I will try these and let you know, if so either one of these would be a good work around. I didn't notice that you were one of the co-authors for the book until this morning. You both did a good job on it. It is so hard to find any books on VFP, but there are tons on VB, yet they are very similar languages.