Saving to CD from MS Office

[TKM]

How do I save documents from inside of MS Office applications directly to a CD-RW disk? Is there a Roxio application that does that? In other words, I want to hit "save as" from Word, then save directly to a CD. Then when I retrieve it from within Word, I don't want it to come up READ-ONLY. I want to edit and save directly from CD without having to go outside of Word, physically copy files , etc. Is there a product that will do this, from Roxio or anyone else?

[d_deweywright]

How do I save documents from inside of MS Office applications directly to a CD-RW disk? Is there a Roxio application that does that? In other words, I want to hit "save as" from Word, then save directly to a CD. Then when I retrieve it from within Word, I don't want it to come up READ-ONLY. I want to edit and save directly from CD without having to go outside of Word, physically copy files , etc. Is there a product that will do this, from Roxio or anyone else?

Yes, there is a way to do it. Let me start by saying that those that have been doing CD writing for any length of time will recommend that you NOT do this, at least if this will be your only copy, and suggest that if you're looking for portable, writable storage, you consider using a thumb/flash drive instead.

 

Drag-To-Disc is the application that will allow you to do what you want. Insert your disc, if Drag-To-Disc offers to format it, let it do so, and then you can do what you want. If it doesn't automatically offer to format the disc, open D2D (Drag-To-Disc) and tell it to format it.

 

Here's why I (and others) will recommend that you don't do this: there's a fair chance that at some point you will lose your data, and if this is your only copy, you'll be rather bummed. If it's important data, you'll be very bummed. If it's important and you've spent a lot of time on it, you'll be very, very bummed. If it's business related, you could be up the proverbial estuary without means of locomotion. (Up the creek without a paddle.) Drag-to-disc uses a method called "packet writing" to write to the disc. It's a rather complicated process, and there are several opportunities for the process to fail, causing lost data. Writing sessions, using EMC's Creator Classic option is much more reliable, though, as you've apparently noticed, the files obtain a "Read Only" status. Also, you've proposed using CD-RW (erasable) media, which can become unreadable over time, all on it's own, so don't consider it "permanent", and make sure if you go this route that you also backup your data to your HD. (True with anything, always have a backup somewhere else.)

 

Now, if you're also backing your data up to HD so it's not your only copy, and just using the CD-RW disc to transport some files from here to there, then using D2D and a CD-RW disc is fine. Just don't rely on it for your only copy.

 

Hope that helps!