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SUMMARY
Whenever you create, open, or save a document in Microsoft Word 2000, the document may contain content that you may not want to share with others when you distribute the document electronically. This information is known as "metadata". Metadata is used for a variety of purposes to enhance the editing, viewing, filing, and retrieval of Office documents.
MORE INFORMATIONMetadata is created in a variety of ways within Word documents. As a result, there is no single method to eliminate all such content from your documents. The following sections describe areas where metadata may be saved within Word documents. How to Remove Your User Name from Your DocumentsYou can view or change your user name by performing the following steps:
How to Remove Personal Summary InformationWhen you create or save a document in Word, summary information may be saved within the document. There are several methods you can use to access this information:
Removing Personal Summary Information When Connected to a NetworkIf you are logged on to a network, your network user name may appear in the Author edit box on the Summary tab and in the Last saved by field on the Statistics tab, when you save a document. This can occur even if you have removed all other personal information from your computer.To remove summary information from a document when you are on a network:
How to Remove Comments Within DocumentsMicrosoft Word offers the ability to add comments to documents. Typically, comments contain the name of the person who created them, so that you can tell who wrote them.Comments typically appear as a highlighted section of text; you can right-click within the comment and click Delete Comment on the shortcut menu. Any new comments that you create should not contain your user name, because you have removed it from your Options dialog box, as shown above. How to Remove Headers and Footers from DocumentsHeaders and footers in documents may contain identifying information. To remove information from headers and footers:
How to Remove Revision MarksDocuments can contain revision marks, which allow you to determine who makes specific changes to a document. When you accept or reject revision marks, the revised text is saved in the document, and the revision marks are removed.To accept or reject revisions:
How to Turn Off Fast SavesThe Fast Saves feature speeds up the process of saving a document by saving only the changes that are made to a document.Because of the design of the Fast Saves feature, text that you delete from a document may remain in the document, even after you save the document. If you are concerned about deleted text remaining in your documents, you should perform the following steps:
Q211209 WD2000: Opening Word Document in Text Editor Displays Deleted Text Q197978 WD2000: Frequently Asked Questions About 'Allow Fast Saves' How to Search for and Remove Text Formatted As HiddenIn Word documents, it is possible to format text as hidden. Because hidden text can contain information you may not want to distribute, you may want to unhide and remove it. To remove all of the text in a document that is formatted as hidden, perform the following steps:
How to Remove Hyperlinks from DocumentsDocuments may contain hyperlinks to other documents or Web pages on an intranet or the Internet. Hyperlinks usually appear as blue underlined text strings.You can manually delete a single hyperlink from a document by right-clicking the hyperlink, pointing to Hyperlink on the shortcut menu, and clicking Remove Hyperlink. If you want to delete all hyperlinks in a document, you can use a Visual Basic for Applications macro to do this. The following sample Visual Basic for Applications macro removes all hyperlinks in a document. NOTE: In the following sample macro, only the link is removed. The text of the hyperlink remains in the document.
To remove all traces of both the hyperlink and the text of the hyperlink from the document, you can use the following sample macro instead.
For more information about using the sample code in this article, please
see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q212536 OFF2000: How to Run Sample Code from Knowledge Base Articles How to Remove Styles from DocumentsDocuments may include styles that contain metadata. You can remove these styles or rename them. To do this:
How to Remove Old File Versions from DocumentsWord includes a file version feature that allows you to save multiple versions of the same document within the same file. You may want to delete older versions of the document before you share it with others.To delete one or more versions of a document, perform the following steps:
How to Remove Links from Field CodesLinked images and other objects in Word documents may contain linking information, such as the path to the linked image or object. You can remove linking information from your document by editing the field codes.To display field codes:
To remove the linking information from a linked image or other object:
How to Remove the Template Name and LocationAll documents created in Word are based on a template. By default, this is the Normal.dot template file, located in the Templates folder. However, you can create a document that is based on a different template in another location. The path and name of this template are stored within the document's properties.To view the template name and location, click Properties on the File menu and select the Summary tab. Even if you do not send the template with the document, the document retains the name and location of the template. To change the template name and location to non-identifying values, do the following:
How to Remove Routing Slip InformationIf you send a document through e-mail using a routing slip, routing information may be attached to the document. To remove this information from the document, you must save the document in a format that does not retain routing slip information.In Microsoft Word, save your document in either RTF (Rich Text Format) or HTML format. Close the document, and then reopen the new file. Because the routing slip information is no longer present, you can now save your document in the Microsoft Word format. You can also use the following steps:
How to Remove the Names of Previous AuthorsWord stores the names of the last 10 people who worked on a document in the document. This is an automatic feature that cannot be turned off.However, you can remove the names of the last 10 authors from a document by saving the document in a format that does not retain such information. For example, if you save the document in either RTF (Rich Text Format) or HTML format, the authoring information is lost. You can then close and reopen the RTF/HTML document and save it in Microsoft Word format. How to Remove Your Name from Visual Basic CodeWhen you record a Visual Basic macro in Word, the recorded macro begins with a header similar to the following:
To remove your name from any macros that you have recorded:
How to Remove Visual Basic References to Other FilesIn the Visual Basic Editor, it is possible to create a reference to another file. If a user opens a document that contains references to other files, the user can see the names of the referenced files.To remove these references, do the following:
How to Remove Network or Hard Disk InformationWhen you save a document to your local hard disk or to a network server, information that identifies the local hard disk or network server may be written into the document.You can remove this information from the document by performing the following steps:
NOTE: Due to the space limitation of a floppy disk (usually 1.44 MB), this method cannot be used if the document file size exceeds the amount of free space on the floppy disk. Embedded Objects Within Documents May Contain MetadataIf you embed an object within a document, the object still retains its own properties, regardless of what you do to the document. For example, if you embed a Microsoft Excel workbook within a Word document, the document and the workbook each has its own properties.You can remove metadata from an embedded object by activating the object, removing any metadata as described above, reactivating the container document (using the above example, this is the Word document), and then saving the container document. NOTE: When you activate an embedded object in a document, only part of the embedded object is displayed within the document; the object may contain additional information that does not appear. If you want a document to contain only a rendering of the embedded object and not the actual contents, cut the object and then use the Paste Special command on the Edit menu to paste the object into the document using a Metafile format. After you do this, you can no longer edit the embedded object; however, it will not contain any metadata. General Suggestions Concerning SecurityHere are some general suggestions that you can use to increase the level of security in your computing environment:
For More InformationFor more information related to the topics discussed above, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Q195007 WD2000: Some Document Properties Populated Automatically Q194606 WD2000: Summary Information Under Properties Is Not Encrypted Q209638 WD2000: No Password Prompt for 'Modify' in Mail Client Additional query words: privacy confidentiality identity anonymity meta-data
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Last Reviewed: July 16, 1999 © 2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use. |