Word is NOT read only!

[Taxi]

I have a large number of external MSWord 2003 files linked to UR. I rarely need to edit these linked files, and I am quite happy to use Cntl+J to open them if I do. However, I do need to see their contents in the Item Details Pane.

The problem I have is that whenever I select one of these files in the Data Explorer Pane, the focus moves into that pane and I have to use the mouse to get out of it as all the keyboard shortcuts are grabbed by MSWord, making navigation of the Data Explorer Pane tedious and frustrating.

This problem has been reported elsewhere (for example, at http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2305) and I understand that “if UR has to launch an app, the focus changes to the document pane”. The only solution I have found so far is to save all my MSWord files as Rich Text (with an rtf extension) but this is a big job and I am concerned about unforeseen implications such as discovering some important feature of MSWord cannot be saved in this format (Although I haven’t found one yet!)

I have tried preventing UR from opening these linked documents editable, by including and excluding .doc from every possible combination of the following options:

• Editor: File extensions to display in text editor:
• Documents: File extensions to open stored documents writeable
• Documents: File extensions to edit/view externally
• Browser : File extensions to display in internal browser view

But the only thing I can do is see completely unformatted text, which is not very helpful.

I have also tried saving MSWord files as Rich Text and renaming the extension as .doc, (to preserve the links), but this didn’t help, even if I removed .rtf from the first two of the options listed above.

So, must I conclude that preventing UR from editing linked MSWord documents internally is not possible? Is my system behaving as expected? I have URp3.1, WindowsXP(SP2), and MSOffice 2003.

Is there a solution out there, or can anyone suggest something else I can try?

[kinook]

1) 'Tools | Options | Documents | File extensions to open store documents writeable' Determines which file types are made non-read-only on disk when a temporary copy of a stored document is created.

2) 'Tools | Options | Browser | File extensions to display in internal browser view' determines which stored document types are displayed internally (in their associated application, if it supports embedding).

3) If not included in the above option, UR can parse text from the document, and 'Tools | Options | Editor | Show item text for documents with no viewer' is checked, the document's unformatted text will be displayed internally (the document can still be viewed/edited externally via Item | Open Document or Ctrl+J).

So if you don't want Word documents to be edited/viewed internally, remove .doc from #2 and uncheck #3.

[Taxi]

Thank you for your reply.

Does this mean #1 is only applicable to stored documents, so not relevant to this thread?

I only wanted to prevent Word documents from being edited internally as I suspect this will prevent them grabbing focus, but it is essential that they can viewed internally.

When I remove .doc from #2 and uncheck #3 as suggested, I see a link with the text "Click here to open linked document".

However, if I restore the tick to the box at #3, I see the "completely unformatted text" I mentioned before. This is not very helpful as my documents contain tables, fields and other objects that are difficult to interpret at best.

Is it possible to prevent linked MSWord documents from grabbing the focus when they are selected in the Data Explorer pane but still appear as they would in MSWord with all their native formatting?

[kinook]

The Word taking focus issue exists whether viewing or editing internally. It can't currently be prevented, but it is on our list to investigate to see if a workaround can be provided.