Removing hidden information
from Microsoft Office files
You may not be aware that your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files often contain hidden or personal information, such as revisions or comments, that others can access. Depending on the nature of the information, this could place you in an embarrassing or compromising position. It could even potentially put the University at legal risk.
For example, during the discovery phase in a lawsuit, electronic copies of relevant documents could be subpoenaed. Any hidden comments or revisions in these documents could then possibly be used as evidence.
Examples of hidden or personal information that are stored in Office documents include:
- Tracked changes, comments, annotations, and versions, even if not displayed
- Hidden text or data cells
- Presentation notes
- Previously deleted text
- Your name and your computer's name
To protect any sensitive information from accidentally being made public, Computer Services recommends that you get into the habit of removing this information before distributing final electronic copies of your documents. There are some simple ways to do this, as described below.
For more information about this topic, refer to the Microsoft article, Control metadata in your legal documents.
Table of contents
A. In your Word preferences, verify that Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving is selected:
1. Click on the Tools menu, select Options.
2. Click on the Security tab.
3. Verify that Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving is selected.
4. As an extra safeguard, select Warn before printing, saving, or sending a file that contains tracked changes or comments.
5. Click on OK.
B. Update your Word, Excel, or PowerPoint preferences to prevent personal information from being saved in the file properties:
1. Click on the Tools menu and select Options.
2. Click on the Security tab.
3. Under Privacy options, add a check mark next to Remove personal information from file properties on save.
4. Click on OK.
C. Update your Word or PowerPoint preferences to prevent previously deleted text from accidentally appearing in your document:
1. Click on the Tools menu, select Options.
2. Click on the Save tab.
3. Remove the check mark next to Allow fast saves.
4. Click on OK.
D. Your Word documents may contain tracked changes, even if they are not viewable. To ensure no tracked changes remain, perform the following steps each time you plan to distribute a final electronic copy of a document:
1. Make sure the Reviewing toolbar appears. To do this, click on the View menu, select Toolbars, and select Reviewing. The toolbar appears as follows:
2. On the Reviewing toolbar, click on Show and make sure check marks appear next to: Comments, Ink Annotations, Insertions and Deletions, Formatting, and All Reviewers:
3.If your document contains any remaining changes, use the Reviewing toolbar buttons to accept or delete changes or comments.
Toolbar button
Description
Go to previous change Go to next change Accept change Reject change/Delete comment Insert comment
Notes:
- To accept all changes at once, click on the arrow next to the Accept change icon and select Accept All Changes in Document.
- To reject all changes at once, click on the arrow next to the Reject change/Delete comment icon and select Reject All Changes in Document.
E. As a final catch all, Microsoft provides a free Hidden Data Add-in program for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that you can use to remove any remaining comments, revisions, file properties, and other private information from your documents. Computer Services recommends that you download and install this program. For more information, go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/834427.
After installing the Hidden Data Add-in program, a Remove Hidden Data option appears under the File menu. To run this program:
1. Click on the File menu and select Remove Hidden Data.
2. Follow the prompts to remove the hidden data, e.g., comments, revisions, file properties, and other private information.
A. Perform the following steps each time you plan to distribute a final electronic copy of a document:
1. Click on the Review tab.
2. In the Tracking group, click on Show Markup.
3. Make sure a check mark appears next to each of the following items:
- Comments
- Ink Annotations
- Insertions and Deletions
- Formatting
- All Reviewers
4. If there are any changes remaining in your document in the Changes group, click Next or Previous.
5. For each change, in the Changes group, click on Accept or Reject. For each comment, in the Comments groups, click on Delete.
6. Repeat these steps until all the tracked changes have been accepted or rejected and all the comments have been deleted.
Notes
- To accept all the changes, in the Changes group, click on arrow under Accept, and then click on Accept All Changes in Document.
- To reject all the changes, in the Changes group, click on the arrow under Reject, and then click on Reject All Changes in Document.
- To remove all comments, in the Comments group, click the arrow under Delete, and then click on Delete All Comments in Document.
B. As a final catch all, when you are ready to share an electronic copy of a completed Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document:
1. Open the document.
2. Click on the Office Button, and select Prepare > Inspect Document. The Document Inspector window appears as follows:
3. Select at a minimum, the following options:
- Comments, Revisions, Versions, and Annotations
- Document Properties and Personal Information
- Hidden Text
4. Click on Inspect.
5. The system will search for items that pertain to the categories you selected. If it finds any items, you will be prompted to remove them.
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Temple University.
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