Template question?

[Cindy P.]

My recruiter tells me that her client has a new Microft
Word program that shows her how people delete and write
over templates for resumes and suggested I clear my
resume of that. I've never heard of this. If I cut and
paste, will it get rid of formatting changes?

I'd appreciate your suggestions!
Thanks,
Cindy

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you have Track Changes enabled and don't accept the changes, then yes,
any recipient with *any* version of Microsoft Word will be able to see your
changes. If you have never enabled Track Changes, this is not an issue. If
you Accept All Changes, this is not an issue. If you want to remove personal
information from a document, there are ways to do that, too, though this
would be rather pointless in a résumé, whose whole purpose is to convey
personal information.

 

[Genine]

She's probably talking about some sort of metadata stripper program. These
don't just show track changes, they can display (among others) the last 10
authors of a Word file, whether you've ever mailed it from within Word, the
date and time the file was last printed and saved and the original create
date.

If you've just copied an old CV and overtyped you haven't got much to worry
about. Similarly if you used one of the CV templates from the office webpages
you'll be fine.

If you borrowed someone else's CV, then the original author of that document
would be visible, along with the dates that person did stuff to the file.
This might matter or it may not be that important.

Some metadata information is not removable. even a metadata stripper cannot
remove the last 10 authors information, although it will reveal it to anyone
using the program to look for it.

If you don't want anyone to know you've copied someone else's file, create a
new blank document on your machine and paste the content into the new
document.

When I was recruiting Word support people I would always look at how they
set up their CV, particularly layout and use of styles. If you're recruiting
someone to support Word you want them to practise what they preach!

Genine

 

[Beth Melton]

The only way previous modifications are stored in a document is if
there are unaccepted/rejected Tacked Changes or if Fast Saves
(Tools/Options/Save) were used on the document.

As of Word 2002 the last 10 authors are no longer stored in the
document unless there are unaccepted/rejected Tracked Changes are
present. Then the authors who edited the document will be present
since Word needs this information for the Tracked Changes features.

Information such as Print Date, Save Date, Created Date and last
author can be found under File/Properties.

Regarding whether you emailed the document from Word, this information
is also stored in the File/Properties/Custom, however this depends on
whether Outlook 2002/2003 was used as the email editor and if the
Outlook option, "Add properties to attachments to enable Reply with
Changes" is turned on. Although if File/Send to/Mail Receipt for
Review was used then a ReviewID will found in the
File/Properties/Custom.

Most of the data stored in the file properties, such as Author,
Company, etc can be removed if you are using Word 2002/2003 and turn
on Tools/Options/Security "Remove personal information from file
properties on save" is turned on. However the data for print, save,
modified, created, dates will still be present.

The Remove Hidden Data utility for Word 2002/2003 almost all of the
metadata , including the author list for documents created in a
previous version of Word. There will still be a create date and save
date but it will be the date the utility was used on the document
rather than the previous dates.

For more on the RHD utility take a look at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;834427

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/