I see the message “Legacy file types may not support Firmex Document Protection”

Have more questions? Submit a request

Symptom

A .doc, .ppt, .xls or .pdf file has been uploaded to the dataroom and a message indicating that “Legacy file types may not support Firmex Document Protection” appears in the document details.

Cause

While any type of file may be uploaded to Firmex, we only attempt to apply document protection for specific file types. These include: .docx,.doc,.ppt, .pptx, .xlsx, .xls, .xlsm and some .pdf files that contain content that cannot be protected.

Microsoft has already announced that Office 2003 file types are no longer supported and that Windows 10 no longer officially supports Office versions older than Office 2010. This change in our document protection options is being made to better align with Microsoft’s support.

A message will display when a legacy file type has been added to the dataroom. Legacy Microsoft Office file types include: .doc, .ppt or .xls. 

Firmex will no longer support these legacy file types and their related document protection issues that may arise. When a legacy file type is uploaded to Firmex and Seclore Document Protection or a Watermark is applied, Firmex will attempt to protect the file. In most situations, the document protection will apply successfully, but not all cases. If the application of watermark is of critical importance on these file types, we recommend that you use the solutions proposed below to confirm that document protection is successfully applied.

Solution

Firmex will continue to fully support document protection on .pdf, .docx, .xlsx and .pptx file types. Any other file types may be uploaded to Firmex but document protection will not be applied.

Resave the legacy file type as a supported file type and reupload to Firmex

For best practice, we recommend that Administrators replace .doc, .ppt, .xls and unsupported .pdf  files with .docx, .pptx, .xlsx or flattened .pdf files. 

  1. Download the original file from Firmex without document protection
  2. Open the file on your computer in its native application
  3. Select File > Save As
  4. Resave the file as a .docx, .pptx, .xlsx or .xlsm file type
  5. Re-upload the file to Firmex

Articles in this section

Was this article helpful?
0 out of 0 found this helpful