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How do I enable Firefox (3.0.19) to open office documents as read-write vs. read-only?

  • 4 replies
  • 15 have this problem
  • 27 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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When opeing any office type document (open office for example) from a webpage/collab folder it always opens as read-only. Is there a setting or attribute to change the behavior to open it as read-write?

I have read-write privileges to the (tmp) directory/folder it saves it to.

When opeing any office type document (open office for example) from a webpage/collab folder it always opens as read-only. Is there a setting or attribute to change the behavior to open it as read-write? I have read-write privileges to the (tmp) directory/folder it saves it to.

All Replies (4)

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If you want to make changes to a file then use Save as to save the file under a different name. If you would remove the read-only attribute and save that file under the same name then you run the risk of losing your edits once you close the file in the text editor (Firefox may delete the file).

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Researching further, I've found you can change this behavior very similar to Thunderbird. 1) Open a new tab 2) Type "about:config" in the url window 3) Confirm the security warning 4) Search for "browser.helperApps.deleteTempFileOnExit" and if you find it, double click it and set the value to False. 5) If you don't find it, right click into the main area, choose "New" > "Boolean", add "browser.helperApps.deleteTempFileOnExit" as name and choose "False" as value.

As cor-el highlighted if you make edits and don't 'save as' to an appropriate location you risk losing your edits! So beware.

The reason opening as read-write is valuable to me is; I'm in a lot meetings reviewing information (from a central source) in spreadsheets etc... and it's very convenient to be able to change column widths, apply a different 'sort', do a 'data pilot' etc... only for use while I'm in the meeting without having to save the file. My company has tight restrictions on disk space so not having to save the file and then remember to delete it is a big win for me.

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Although possibly not related to your problem, I have to remind you that the version of Firefox you are using at the moment has been discontinued and is no longer supported. On top of this, it has known unpatched bugs and security problems. I urge you to update to the latest version of Firefox, for maximum security, stability, performance and usability. You can get it for free, as always, at getfirefox.com.

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You also have outdated versions of Flash and Java:

  1. Java(TM) Plug-in 1.6.0_18
  2. Shockwave Flash 10.0 r42

Be aware that you need to check whether you meet the system requirements of newer 3.5 or 3.6 versions and have all required libraries before trying to update.

See http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/system-requirements.html - Firefox 3.6 System Requirements