Pre-populate a field based on another node's field value
You should check out hook_form_alter. It would let you preload form values but still keep them editable.

Something like this would work to load something from the user's profile fields into the node form for new nodes.

&lt;?php
  function custom_module_form_alter(&amp;$form, $form_state, $form_id) {
    switch($form_id) {
      case 'NODETYPE_node_form':
        global $user;
        $current_user = user_load($user-&gt;uid);
        // Set only on nodes that haven't already been saved
        if (!isset($form['#node']-&gt;nid)) {
          $form['field_YOUR_FIELD_NAME'][LANGUAGE_NONE][0]['value']['#default_value'] = 
            $current_user-&gt;field_YOUR_USER_FIELD[LANGUAGE_NONE][0]['safe_value'];
        }
      break;
    }
  }
?&gt;