IdeaJam(tm) : Programmatically prevent document printing

Notes Client / Other: Programmatically prevent document printing

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:05:24 +0000

Author: David Lundy
Tags: print
Idea:

There needs to be a way to programmatically prevent a form from being printed. Only allowing users who match a given set of criteria to print would be very useful in a "security" situation. The design checkbox of "disable printing/forwarding/copying" is nice if you like smashing flies with Buicks (read: overkill).

A specific example is a database we use to document "incidents" around the hospital. Drug mistakes, employee injuries, patient injuries, etc. Currently, anyone who can see a given incident can print it. There are many times that we need certain people to be able to view an incident report but NOT edit OR print it (it contains sensitive information from a legal standpoint).

Another example could be a policies application. One wouldn't want to allow printing of non-approved policies by users other than the creator and/or upper level management individuals.

re: Programmatically prevent document printing

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:38:59 +0000

Author: Rob Goudvis
Comment: Even when there is a way to prevent printing, the user can always make a screen dump.So I vote against this idea.

re: Programmatically prevent document printing

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:51:18 +0000

Author: Matt White
Comment: I'm with Rob here. The illusion of security can actually be worse than nothing at all.

re: Programmatically prevent document printing

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:22:19 +0000

Author: Jim Roysdon
Comment: Sorry, I agree and have had this conversation with many customers. It is impossible to stop someone from "prt-scrn" or screen shotting the data.

re: Programmatically prevent document printing

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:19:50 +0000

Author: David Lundy
Comment: No worries folks. I absolutely agree with what you're saying. It was requested by one of our users and I thought it was odd that we couldn't do anything but disable printing for EVERYONE (as well as copy/forward).

Most of our users aren't creative or knowledgeable enough to do screen caps anyhow. ;)

re: Programmatically prevent document printing

Fri, 16 May 2008 06:24:10 +0000

Author: Charles Robinson
Comment: You can block Print Screen on Windows. Here is code: { Link }

re: Programmatically prevent document printing

Fri, 23 May 2008 13:34:00 +0000

Author: Phil Petts
Comment: David,

Whilst I agree with everyone else about the print-screen problem (although Charles has a solution for that above), you can control who can print the document by having a computed $KeepPrivate field on the form. You set the field to "1" if you don't want the user to print / forward etc. I've done this in the past and it works, I think by default it was set to "1" then I added a button to print, which clears the field, prints the doc, then adds the "1" back in.

Another approach would be to have two copies of the form, one with the disable printing/forwarding/copying set, one without (use a subform to store all the fields etc). Then use a form formula in the view(s) to calculate which form is used by which user.

HTH

Phil.