Permanent Deletion of Content in Word Docs

[Trey]

Hi --

I'm about to leave a job and I'm cleaning up my files on the hard drive. I
have some Word docs that have information that I want permanently removed
from my hard drive (no, no -- nothing sensitive or controversial -- more like
airline itineraries and the like). I know that when you throw a file into the
recycle bin and empty the bin, it can be resurrected with a retrieval
program.

However, I was wondering what happens if you go into a Word doc, manually
delete all of the text in it, re-save it, and _then_ throw it in the recycle
bin. Does that prevent any future users or IT people from retrieving and
seeing the content that was once in the word doc? Or can they still somehow
get access to the content?

I have seen programs that wipe hard drives clean but it's not that crucial
and I have hundreds of files that I need to give back to corporate. Plus, I'm
not sure what a hard drive wipe might do to injure other programs on my
system so I'm going to just do a manual cleanup and that's it.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Jay Freedman]

Deleting the text of a document and resaving it will remove the text from
the file (as long as you don't have Track Changes or Versions turned on),
but there are other things in the file besides just the text.

Read these articles for enlightenment:

How to Minimize Metadata in Word
WD97:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=223790
WD2000:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=237361
WD2002:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=290945

Remove Hidden Data add-in for Office 2003 and Office XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=834427
Protecting Personal Data in Your Word 2003 Documents
http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/libra...a/html/odc_WDProtectWord2003.asp--Regards,Jay FreedmanMicrosoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.orgEmail cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup soall may benefit.Trey wrote:> Hi -->> I'm about to leave a job and I'm cleaning up my files on the hard> drive. I have some Word docs that have information that I want> permanently removed from my hard drive (no, no -- nothing sensitive> or controversial -- more like airline itineraries and the like). I> know that when you throw a file into the recycle bin and empty the> bin, it can be resurrected with a retrieval program.>> However, I was wondering what happens if you go into a Word doc,> manually delete all of the text in it, re-save it, and _then_ throw> it in the recycle bin. Does that prevent any future users or IT> people from retrieving and seeing the content that was once in the> word doc? Or can they still somehow get access to the content?>> I have seen programs that wipe hard drives clean but it's not that> crucial and I have hundreds of files that I need to give back to> corporate. Plus, I'm not sure what a hard drive wipe might do to> injure other programs on my system so I'm going to just do a manual> cleanup and that's it.>> Thanks in advance!