It
might be surprising to many that Microsoft office suite is designed by
default to save hidden metadata in your office documents, which includes
the name of everyone who has worked on that document, duration of time
spent on the document, the date the document was created and even
previous versions of the document.
It is important to check for the amount of personal information (metadata) Microsoft office has extracted and attached to the file before sending it to someone through mail or publicly publish it online. This is because those with knowledge of metadata information could extract personal information about you which may infringe on your privacy.
How to View and Remove Hidden Data in your Document
If you are using an Office 2013 or Office 2010, click on file menu >info and the Inspect Document tool will open up, informing you about the potential sensitive information contained in the document.
To view the hidden metadata in the document, click on inspect document under the check issues button, then choose the types of metadata you would like to check.
After selection click on inspect and office will check the document for hidden metadata. click on the remove all button to remove a specific type of metadata.
If you have no need for the metadata then you have no reason to save the document before deleting the metadata, but in case you do, before deleting the metadata from the document, use the save as to save the document as a copy before sending or publishing the metadata free copy.
Information Saved by Metadata
Office saves information such as the authors name, subject, title, the date the document was created, modified, and how long you spent working on the document.
In addition, if you collaborated with other people while writing the document, it will contain even more data. The metadata will display the names of everyone who worked on the document as well as any comments, revision marks, ink annotations, and previous versions of the document. If you’re publishing a document you worked on, you’ll probably want to remove all this data rather than sharing it.
To prevent Office from saving metadata along with your documents, click the File menu > Options > then Trust Center category. Click on Trust Center Settings and click on Privacy Options. Enable the “Remove personal information from file properties on save” option. If it appears grayed out, click the Document Inspector button below, run the Document Inspector, and remove all the document’s personal information. You should then be able to click the checkbox.
How to Stop Office From Saving Metadata
Having known how to remove metadata from a document, it is however stressful to remove metadata from every single document before sending online as it is impossible to remove metadata from multiple files. Nevertheless, you can configure Office to remove the metadata from a file every time you save the document.
Due to the lengthy nature, and picture attribution of the tutorial i would recommend you read the full article at the website.
It is important to check for the amount of personal information (metadata) Microsoft office has extracted and attached to the file before sending it to someone through mail or publicly publish it online. This is because those with knowledge of metadata information could extract personal information about you which may infringe on your privacy.
How to View and Remove Hidden Data in your Document
If you are using an Office 2013 or Office 2010, click on file menu >info and the Inspect Document tool will open up, informing you about the potential sensitive information contained in the document.
To view the hidden metadata in the document, click on inspect document under the check issues button, then choose the types of metadata you would like to check.
After selection click on inspect and office will check the document for hidden metadata. click on the remove all button to remove a specific type of metadata.
If you have no need for the metadata then you have no reason to save the document before deleting the metadata, but in case you do, before deleting the metadata from the document, use the save as to save the document as a copy before sending or publishing the metadata free copy.
Information Saved by Metadata
Office saves information such as the authors name, subject, title, the date the document was created, modified, and how long you spent working on the document.
In addition, if you collaborated with other people while writing the document, it will contain even more data. The metadata will display the names of everyone who worked on the document as well as any comments, revision marks, ink annotations, and previous versions of the document. If you’re publishing a document you worked on, you’ll probably want to remove all this data rather than sharing it.
To prevent Office from saving metadata along with your documents, click the File menu > Options > then Trust Center category. Click on Trust Center Settings and click on Privacy Options. Enable the “Remove personal information from file properties on save” option. If it appears grayed out, click the Document Inspector button below, run the Document Inspector, and remove all the document’s personal information. You should then be able to click the checkbox.
How to Stop Office From Saving Metadata
Having known how to remove metadata from a document, it is however stressful to remove metadata from every single document before sending online as it is impossible to remove metadata from multiple files. Nevertheless, you can configure Office to remove the metadata from a file every time you save the document.
Due to the lengthy nature, and picture attribution of the tutorial i would recommend you read the full article at the website.
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