New Mac User - confused about titling a doc?

[alonakatz]

Hello,
Someone sent me a document through email - I downloaded it - it was
named workstuff.doc - This was normal but then I clicked on it,
holding down on the control key and got the More Info box. Under the
section that said More Info - it said the title of the doc and the
author. The author was my friend, as expected - but under title there
was somethinng different, um, very different, some bad words lets say.
So, what is the difference between the name you give a doc and what you
see in the Title section of the "More Info" box - did he not realize I
could see that? Please advise before I confront.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

"workstuff.doc" is the name of a file stored in a file system. Typically,
changing a file's name does not change anything stored inside the file.

Word (and many other applications) generally allow you store a number of
"Properties" about a document. Word lets you store a number of standard
properties such as Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Comments and so on.
These are stored inside the file, and will typically only change if the
person who last edited the document has changed them. (Actually, on some
file systems it is also possible to store "properties" in the file's
directory entry in the filing system, but this type of property may or may
not be transferred when the file is transmittted from one system to
another).

When you first save a new Word document, Word uses text from the first line
of the document to
a. suggest a file name in the Save dialog
b. create a title

Once the title has been created, it won't change unless someone deliberately
changes it. Anyone who creates documents by opening an existing document
then "saving as" another document will preserve any existing Title. So it is
even possible that your friend never wrote or saw (or noticed) the text you
see in the Title - e.g., if someone sent your friend a document that already
had that Title, and your friend opened it, deleted all the body text, wrote
new body text, saved as, then transmitted to you.

Peter Jamieson