What does the reader permission level allow me to do that the view only permission level does not?

Question

SharePoint 2010 team sites have both "reader" and "view only" permission levels when they are provisioned. The only difference between the two is that the reader grants the extra "view items" permission. This is described in the TechNet documentation as:

"Open Items - View the source of documents with server-side file handlers."

I'm struggling to comprehend what functionality "View the source of documents with server-side file handlers. " actually provides. Could somebody please elaborate with a practical example of what this would let me do that the view only permission level would not. Ideally some common functionality that would allow me to determine (as a user) which of the two permission levels I have?

Thanks

 Adrian

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http://www.adriancolquhoun.com

Answer 1

Hi Adrian,

To give an insight of the difference, actually there is no difference between them.

They have some relations in SharePoint. View Only permission gives users the right to view pages, list items, and documents, but prevent any modification. That means, in item level, document can only be viewed in Read Only mode by the users with View Only permission.

Hope it helps.

 

 

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Regards, Suresh A|MCTS|[e-mail]

Answer 2

Hi,

the difference between "reader" and "view only" is that a reader could open any office document in his local office application. A user with read only can only open documents which are rendered in the browser like an excel with excel web access or a word which is converted to a html page by the document conversion service. View only users cannot use client applications to view documents.

Answer 3

HI

I have tested this out. A user with view only permission can quite happilly open documents in the word client on their local machine - I presume you mean a view only user cant open the same document in the word web apps (server apps) and so unless office web  apps are installed there would actualy be no difference between the two permission levels?

As an aside the TechNet documentation makes no reference to the view only permission level in a team site - it states that there are five permission levels (but when you provision a team site you actually get 6).

Thanks

Adrian

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http://www.id-live.com

Answer 4

Hi

I just tested this with office web apps and if web apps are enabled view only users do not have the option to open in word they automatically use the web app even if the Site Collection Feature "Open Documents in Client Applications by Default" is activated office web apps will open (at least in my environment).

What "View the source of documents with server-side file handlers" means is described here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb283148.aspx

View Items	View items in lists, documents in document libraries, and Web discussion comments.	X	X	X	Open a report, report model, and other document and have it processed on the report server.
Open Items	View the source of documents with server-side file handlers.	X	X	X	View a list of shared data sources. Download a copy of the source file for a report definition or report model. View clickthrough reports that use a report model as a data source.

View Items
 View items in lists, documents in document libraries, and Web discussion comments.
 Open a report, report model, and other document and have it processed on the report server.
 
Open Items
 View the source of documents with server-side file handlers.
 View a list of shared data sources. Download a copy of the source file for a report definition or report model. View clickthrough reports that use a report model as a data source.