Re: saving in publisher 2000

"papeco" <papeco@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:2E8A1869-0F5D-4FA6-8387-F4EA9DBFEF04@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I have been trying to download my project on a cd to take to a
company for copies but after download I can not open due to it
says it is a readable file only. I have gone back and unchecked
the readable file only and still am not able to read please can
someone help with this?

As others here have already said, you really need to tell us *exactly* what error message you are getting (the exact wording of the message) and also under what circumstances the error occurs (in other words, exactly what you did that caused the error message to appear). It also helps if you tell us which version of Windows you are using (different versions behave differently in some respects regarding files on a CD).

Computer files have various "flags" associated with them. These flags tell the operating system what can and cannot be done with a specific file. When you write a file to a CD the system normally sets the "read only" flag to True to indicate that the file can be "read" but it cannot be "written to". When you then insert that CD into another computer you can "open" the CD (by double clicking your "My Computer" icon and then double clicking the CD drive) and you can then open the .pub file by double clicking it, which will cause it to open up in Publisher (if Publisher is in fact installed on that machine). Publisher will quite happily open the file, but because its "read only" flag is set it will not be able to write to that file. In other words, if you select File / Save in Publisher you will get an error message telling you that it cannot write to the file. The exact wording of this message probably varies between different versions of Publisher, but it is effectively telling you that it cannot write to the file because it's "read only" flag is set.

You can solve this in two ways. One way is a to "clear" the "read only" flag of the file (see the next paragraph for more details on this) and the other way is to save a new copy of the file under a different name by using the Publisher menu File / Save As (instead of File / Save). If you use "Save As" you will be able to specify a new name for the file (or perhaps use the same name but place it in a different drive and / or directory, which is something I would not advise). Using "Save As" will result in you having two copies of the file (the original on the CD and another on your main drive). These two copies may be the same or they may be different, depending on whether you made any changes to the document in Publisher before you used Save As. The other way (the way I would suggest) is to simply copy the file from the CD onto your main drive, as explained in the following paragraph.

To get normal full "read and write" access to the original file file you need to "clear" its "read only" flag. You can do this by "right clicking" the file and selecting "Properties" and then removing the tick from the "read only" box. However, if you attempt to do this to the actual copy of the file on the CD you will get another error message. This is because the "read only" flag is stored in the actual file, and Windows cannot change that status because it physically cannot overwrite the file on the CD.

To solve this problem you need to copy the file from the CD onto your computer. The easiest way to do this is to make the "drive window" smaller than the display (use the standard maximize / normalize button at the top right) and then "drag" the file out onto your desktop, so that you now have two copies of the file (one still on the CD and another on your desktop). If you are using WinXP then the act of doing this will automatically cause the "read only" flag to be cleared in the file on the desktop, but if you are using Windows 98 you will need to clear it yourself (right click the file on the desktop and select Properties and remove the tick from the "read only" box).

Does this solve your problem for you? Print this message so that you can refer to it while working on the file. If it does not solve your problem then post again with *exact* details of all of the error messages you are getting and the *exact* circumstances under which you get them.

Maureen


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