Delete document metadate and statistics

[jt7747]

First of all can I say how difficult it was to register here - the
secret question asked if a whale was a 'mammel', spelt wrong, and the
string recognition graphics were so difficult that I had to retry 10
times before I got it right. I really hate it when websites make it so
difficult to sign up that it costs you minutes of your life. It would
be helpful if that form specified whether the string capture was case
sensitive, whether it used zero or 'O' etc. Very difficult for new
users.

Here is my question
I was very worried to see that word secretly records the amount of time
spent editing my document, as well as it's creation date and
modification dates and whatnot.

This is information I definitely do not want to share with a
boss/employer/client.

Short of pasting the contents into a brand new document prior to
emailing, can you tell me how to delete all the metadata that Word 2007
secretly collects. This is potentially confidential info and I do not
want to share it, but it's impossible to delete in Word as far as I can
see.

Thanks in advance for tips

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I don't know what Web site you are posting from, but I'm pretty sure the
Microsoft Communities site doesn't have any such absurd requirements, and
you can certainly read these newsgroups with a newsreader (such as Outlook
Express or Windows Live Mail) without signing in at all (see
http://www.gmayor.com/MSNews.htm).

Although it is possible to remove personal information from Word documents,
if you do not want the creation time and editing time reflected in your
document, you can use Save As when it is complete; this will "restart the
clock." For the rest, use Office Button | Prepare | Inspect Document.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[jt7747]

Thank you Susan. I was logged in at wordbanter.com, but I guess that'
just an interface to your newsgroup. Where's the 'best' place to vie
your word forum - I'm a bit confused?

Thanks for the Save as tip, which I presume it just saving a copy bu
with the editing time removed. Don't you think it's a bit sneaky tha
MS stores this info but doesn't give the option to remove it? Ther
must be millions of users who have no idea that the editing time i
stored, and it's potentially sensitive info if a client reads
document and finds out it was composed in only a few hours, whereas th
person doing the work says it took a week, for example.

It's not microsoft's place to insist on capturing such informaiton
There should be a box to remove it. Noone seems to mind about this, bu
I suspect it's because they don't know about it

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

FWIW, many users (including me) find the "Editing time" statistic extremely
helpful. When I start work on a job and forget to start my timer, I can
check that statistic to see how many minutes I've put in, then run the timer
up to that amount before starting it. It becomes less useful over time,
especially if there are numerous editing sessions and in particular if you
have left the document open while you're working on something else. I think
that most people who are aware of these metadata statistics take *all* of
them with at least a grain of salt. It's been pretty well established that
they're worthless for legal purposes. I don't think Microsoft makes any
secret of them. Every file has Properties. Some can be accessed through
Windows Explorer/My Computer, some only through the application that created
the file, but most people know they're there. Word also has built-in fields
for all the built-in document properties (you can see the EditTime field in
the Field dialog).

As for where to access the NGs, as I indicated, the most efficient way, if
you frequent NGs regularly, is with an NNTP newsreader such as Outlook
Express. If you are running any version of Windows, you have such a
newsreader built in (OE or WLM), but there are also third-party newsreaders
that can access Usenet. You don't have to have access to a general news
server to access the Microsoft NGs, however, because MS makes them directly
available on its own servers. As indicated, there are instructions for OE
setup at http://www.gmayor.com/MSNews.htm.

For casual users, or those in offices that don't permit NNTP access to
newsgroups, you can access the Microsoft NGs through
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx (or,
specifically for [some] Office groups,
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx). You do need
to log in with a Windows LiveID, but chances are you've already created one
of those for some other purpose.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org