remove personal info in track changes, Word 2007

[Tunes]

Hi,
Is there any way to set up track changes in Word 2007 so that the author
name, date and time of a tracked change isn't visible? I don't want to delete
the changes themselves.
Thanks!

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hi,
Is there any way to set up track changes in Word 2007 so that the author
name, date and time of a tracked change isn't visible? I don't want to delete
the changes themselves.
Thanks!

I can think of one sneaky way of getting nearly there.
Make two new copies.
Reject all changes on one
Accept all changes on the other.
Delete all your personal information in Preferences or change your name
to John Doe if it won't let you.
Use compare docs on the two copies.
Tracked changes reappear as belonging to John Doe, with the date and
time no longer being very interesting.

If you *really* want to anonymise the result, you need sterner measures.
You'd be amazed what is revealed by opening a Word doc in emacs or any
other straight text editor.

Round tripping each copy through Word's html before the compare should
do a fair job without utterly destroying your formatting.

Please keep your original safe. I did not test this procedure before
posting.

 

[Tunes]

Thanks, Elliott. I don't think the latter ways would work as I work in
publishing where the doc contains lots of xml coding and other stuff going on
"behind the scenes." I appreciate your response!

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

There is a checkbox in the Options for "remove all personal information
from this document on save." (It's in Mac Word too, Elliott). I think
you have to click on the Office logo and find the advanced options to
access it (under Security?), but I believe it will do what you want.

I can't be more precise, because:
Sorry, you’ve landed in a MacWord group (not your fault, the interface
is *very* badly designed). You might get an answer from the people here
who use both Windows and Mac, but you should try asking your question on
the general Word newsgroups. Start here:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/FlyoutOverview.mspx

 

[Tunes]

Oops..yes, I guess it is a poorly designed interface. I have Word 2007 and
there is some business about not being able to access that one (much needed
at the moment) feature. Thanks, Microsoft!
Thanks for your advice, though!