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I checked the Techwr-L archives for this, but couldn't find anything.
I recall a recent discussion regarding PDF security, but that's
about it. I'd appreciate any guidance or suggestions you can
provide.
I'll soon be working on a web-hosting service "user manual" for one
of my clients. She is super-concerned about competitors stealing
this manual - apparently she has had to take legal action 10 times
in the past 5 years against competitors who have used copyrighted
material from her site. She tells me that a well-written user manual
is a hot commodity in the web-hosting biz, so she's really worried
about security.
Of course we all know that NO document format is 100% secure -
especially not HTML or anything that you can simply copy & paste
from a screen - but I want to get some suggestions from you
listers. None of the options I can think of are foolproof or a great
compromise in terms of user accessibility:
(1) PDF the manual with a "property of..." watermark and those
infamous PDF "security" options. <grin>
(2) Use HTML, but include Javascript that disables source-viewing,
and use some creative code that will make copy & pasting nasty
and require lots of editing.
(3) Render each page or section of the manual as a graphic. This
would make extracting the text difficult, but it would also take a
long time to load (ie. bad for customers, especially those on dial-
up).
I dunno. Am I missing some magic or totally obvious solution? I'd
appreciate any suggestions you can throw my way. Copyrighting a
work only pays off once the thief is caught... my client wants to
*prevent* theft to begin with, if possible. Thanks all!
*Tanja
--
Words4Nerds: big technical writing for small business
Email tanja -at- words4nerds -dot- com
Phone 514-935-0463
Web www.words4nerds.com
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