02.04.2020

Remove Personal Information Microsoft Word Mac

Is anyone aware of a way of setting Office for Mac 2011 to automatically use the 'remove personal information' option on every save? Stack Exchange Network Stack Exchange network consists of 175 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their. Jul 26, 2019  Click the Remove all button for the information that you want to remove. Click the Reinspect button. Click the Inspect button again. If the document is clean, click the Close button. How to Remove Metadata from Microsoft Word Files. When sharing Word documents, you may wish to remove document metadata, which is hidden or personal data. To remove document metadata follow these four steps. This feature works the same in all modern versions of Microsoft Word.

On Windows 10, when you create an Office document using Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, alongside the content, the file can also include personal information and hidden data (such as the name of the author, metadata, hidden text, and comments), which you may not want to share with other people.

If you're planning to share a document, it's always a good idea to use the 'Document Inspector' feature available in Office 365, Office 2019, 2016, or older versions to review and remove any hidden information before sharing the document to protect your privacy.

In this Windows 10 guide, we walk you through the steps to remove personal information, as well as hidden data, from an Office document that you're about to publish online or share with others.

How to inspect and remove personal data from Word document in Office

To inspect and remove personal information before sharing a Word document, use these steps:

Microsoft wireless all-in-one media keyboard mac. Sit back and do more with this keyboard with integrated touch pad. The All-in-One Media Keyboard is the perfect device for your living room or home office. It has a full-size keyset and an integrated multi-touch trackpad – type, swipe, drag, zoom, and click with ease.

Important: If you think that you may need this information at some point in the future, it's recommended to remove the personal and hidden data from a copy of the document.

  1. Open the Word document.
  2. Click on File.
  3. Click on Info.
  4. On the right side, click the Check for Issues menu.

    Quick tip: Under the 'Inspect Document' section, you'll see an overview of the contents that you may want to remove from the file.

  5. Select the Inspect Document option.

  6. Check the contents that you want to inspect. For instance, in Microsoft Word, you can remove this information:

    • Comments, Revisions, and Versions.
    • Documents Properties and Personal Information.
    • Task Pane Add-ins.
    • Embedded Documents.
    • Macros, Forms, and ActiveX Controls.
    • Ink.
    • Collapsed Headings.
    • Custom XML Data.
    • Headers, Footers, and Watermarks.
    • Invisible Content.
    • Hidden Text.
  7. Click the Inspect button.

  8. Click the Remove all button for the information that you want to remove.

  9. Click the Reinspect button.
  10. Click the Inspect button again.
  11. If the document is clean, click the Close button. Otherwise, click the Remove all button to clear the information.

Once you complete these steps, you can safely publish or share the Microsoft Word document with other users without giving away your personal information or specific content.

Are you running an older version of Office? If so, you're missing out. If you switch to an Office 365 subscription, you can always upgrade to the newest version to access the latest features at no extra cost, and you get many other benefits, such as sharing the apps with other users and 1TB of OneDrive storage.

Get subscribed

Office 365

Office 365 gives you full access to all the apps and perks, such as 1TB OneDrive storage and Skype minutes. You can also install Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and other apps on up to five devices, and depending on the subscription, you can share the account with up to five people.

How to inspect and remove personal data from an Excel document in Office

To inspect and remove personal information before sharing an Excel spreadsheet, use these steps:

  1. Open the Excel document.
  2. Click on File.
  3. Click on Info.
  4. On the right side, click the Check for Issues menu.
  5. Select the Inspect Document option.

    Quick tip: In the rare case that you've saved the spreadsheet as a Shared Workbook, you won't be able to remove any hidden information. If you have to delete any information, you'll need to make a copy of the file, and then disable the Shared Workbook from the 'Review' tab.

  6. Check the contents that you want to inspect. For instance, in Microsoft Excel, you can remove this information:

    • Comments.
    • Documents Properties and Personal Information.
    • Data Model.
    • Content Add-ins.
    • Task Pane Add-ins.
    • PivotTables, PivotCharts, Cube Formulas, Slicers, and Timelines.
    • Embedded Documents.
    • Macros, Forms, and ActiveX Controls.
    • Links to Other Files.
    • Real Time Data Functions.
    • Excel Surveys.
    • Defined Scenarios.
    • Active Filters.
    • Custom Worksheet Properties.
    • Hidden Names.
    • Ink.
    • Custom XML Data.
    • Headers and Footers.
    • Hidden Rows and Columns.
    • Hidden Worksheets.
    • Invisible Content.
  7. Click the Inspect button.

  8. Click the Remove all button for the information that you want to remove.

  9. Click the Reinspect button.
  10. Click the Inspect button again.
  11. If the document is clean, click the Close button. Otherwise, click the Remove all button to clear the information.

After you complete the steps, you can share the Excel spreadsheet with colleagues or clients without also sharing your personal information.

How to inspect and remove personal data from PowerPoint document in Office

To inspect and remove personal information before sharing a PowerPoint presentation, use these steps:

  1. Open the PowerPoint document.
  2. Click on File.
  3. Click on Info.
  4. On the right side, click the Check for Issues menu.
  5. Select the Inspect Document option.

  6. Check the contents that you want to inspect. For instance, in Microsoft PowerPoint, you can remove this information:

    • Comments.
    • Documents Properties and Personal Information.
    • Content Add-ins.
    • Take Pane Add-ins.
    • Embedded Documents.
    • Macro, Forms, and ActiveX controls.
    • Revision Tracking Data.
    • Ink.
    • Custom XML Data.
    • Invisible On-Slide Content.
    • Off-Slide Content.
    • Presentation Notes.
  7. Click the Inspect button.

  8. Click the Remove all button for the information that you want to remove.

  9. Click the Reinspect button.
  10. Click the Inspect button again.
  11. If the document is clean, click the Close button. Otherwise, click the Remove all button to clear the information.

Once you complete the steps, you can publish the PowerPoint presentation online or share it with other people without giving away your personal information.

More Windows 10 resources

Word

For more helpful articles, coverage, and answers to common questions about Windows 10, visit the following resources:

Mauro recommends all these affordable accessories

Hi, I'm Mauro Huculak, Windows Central's help and how-to guru. I wrote the post you're reading now, and I know the Windows OS inside and out. But I'm also a bit of a hardware geek. These are some of the affordable gadgets on my desk today.

Logitech MX Master Wireless Mouse($72 at Amazon)

I know mice, and this is the one I use every day. The MX Master is a wireless high-precision mouse that's very comfortable to use and has many great features, including the ability to connect with multiple devices, an infinite scroll wheel, back and forward buttons, all of which you can customize.

Ktrio Extended Gaming Mouse Pad($12 at Amazon)

If you spend a lot of time typing, your palms and mouse will leave tracks on your desk. My solution was to start using gaming mouse pads, which are big enough for you to use the keyboard and the mouse comfortably. This is the one I use and recommend.

Supernight LED light strip($20 at Amazon)

You could just use a regular light bulb in your office, but if you want to add some ambient lighting with different colors, an RGB LED strip is the way to go. This one is Mauro-approved.

We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.

Make Meetings Fun

Microsoft now lets you spice up your Teams calls with custom backgrounds

With more people now working from home, Microsoft is beefing up Teams with several new features. One of the biggest is the ability to add custom backgrounds during video calls to add a little fun to the experience.

Microsoft Office automatically saves hidden metadata and personal information to all documents that you create using the Microsoft Office Program. In this post you will be learning how to remove hidden information and metadata from Microsoft Office documents, so as to prevent anyone from making use of this information.

Hidden Information Attached to Office Files.

Microsoft Office by default saves the following information anytime you create and save a file an Office document.

1. Author name, Company name, name of person who recently saved the document. Other personally identifiable information (PII), such as e-mail headers, send-for-review information, routing slips, and template names.

2. Shared or collaborated documents might contain revision marks, comments, ink annotations, names of people who worked on the document, comments from reviewers and changes that were made to the document.

3. Date the document was created, date the document was modified, document revisions, document versions.

4. The name of your computer, the name of the network server or hard disk where the document is saved.

5. Hidden text or cells that you may not be aware of.

Consequences of Hidden Data in Office Files

Apart from conveying sensitive information, hidden data attached to your files may also create misunderstandings in case there are inconsistencies between what you report in person about the work and what the document ends up conveying through its attached hidden information and metadata.

For example, you may report to the client that your company spent 120 man-hours to create the document. While someone on the client’s side might access the hidden data attached to your document and conclude that the document was created by another company and someone at your company hardly spent an hour looking at the document.

While it is quite common in business to sublet work, you may not want to reveal this info to your clients.

Remove Personal Information Microsoft Word Mac

Other Situations Where Hidden Data May Cause Problems

In other situations, there are privacy concerns with the way Microsoft Office attaches Metadata and personal information to the documents.

1. You may register an anonymous complaint only to discover that your name and details were accessible through files hidden metadata.

2. You may publish a document to a website, hoping to remain anonymous. However, unknown to you the document had enough information about you in the files hidden metadata.

3. There may be document headers, footers, watermarks and hidden text linked to your documents. These may convey sensitive information, trade secrets and other info which you may not want to be open about.

4. You or other people that worked on creating a document may have made certain comments/remarks that may not be appropriate to be sent to a client. These might get attached to your document and may not be obvious when you just view the document.

Hence, it makes all the sense to check and clear the hidden metadata from an office document before publishing it online or sending it to a client.

Remove Hidden Information From Office Documents

Here is how you can view and remove hidden data and personal information from office files created using Microsoft Office 2007, where the metadata is more hidden, compared to Office 2010 and 2013.

1. Open the file that you want to remove hidden information from.

2. Click the Office Button on the top ribbon menu (See image below)

3. Point to Prepare and Click on Inspect Document (See Image below).

4. You will be taken to Document Inspector screen, on this click on Inspect.

5. Windows will Inspect the Document and Display Inspection Results for your review (See image below).

Remove Personal Information Microsoft Word Mac Software

6. Click on Remove All on the Document Properties and Personal Information Section to remove all your personal information that Office has attached to your document. You can extend this procedure to other sections that you want to remove.

7. On the Next Screen Windows will confirm Removal of Document Properties and Personal Information.

As you can see from “Note: Some changes cannot be undone,” you will not be able to recover information that you will be deleting by this procedure.

Hence, you may wish to make a backup copy for your use and reference before clearing personal info and other data from file that you will be sending out.

Remove Hidden Data From Office 2010 and 2013 Documents

1. Click the File tab, and then click Info.

2. Click Check for Issues, and then click Inspect Document (See Image below).

3. You can leave all the selected options, ticked as they are or choose sections that you want to examine the document for.

4. Click Inspect and Office will examine the document for the selected hidden metadata.

5. Review the results of the document inspection in the Document Inspector dialog box.

6. Click the Remove All button next to the inspection results for the types of hidden data that you want to remove from the document.

Stop Office From Attaching Information

Unfortunately, there is really no way to tweak the settings and prevent Microsoft Office from saving personal information and metadata to files.

However, in Office 2013 you can set the Office file that you are working on to automatically remove meta data every time the file is saved. This way you can avoid the chances of you not remembering to remove hidden information from the file, before sending it to the client.

1. Click the File menu.

Microsoft Word For Mac

2. Click Options, and select the Trust Center category.

3. Click the Trust Center Settings button and select Privacy Options.

4. Enable the “Remove personal information from file properties on save” option.

Remove Personal Information Microsoft Word Mac Torrent

Note: At times you may find “Remove Personal Information ….” option unavailable for ticking. If this is the case, click the Document Inspector button (see image above), let the Document Inspector remove all the hidden information attached to the document.

Next, you can save the file and try to access the Trust Center privacy options once again. This time the option should be available and you should be able to click the checkbox.

Microsoft Word Information Sheet

You need to be aware that this setting is limited to the current file only and does not apply to other files that you had created prior to this setting or to new files that you will be creating using Microsoft office. There is no way in Microsoft Office to set this setting as default or make it applicable system wide.