Word: Track Changes
Alexander Muse , November 29, 2005
How to remove hidden data (like track changes) from Word documents:
If you create documents in Word be careful when editing an existing document and forwarding that document to someone. They will be able to see the original document, when it was changed and who made the changes. Sort of a bad idea when sending out employment offers and other contracts… Lots of folks have been burned including [via]:
- The UN as documented here, here, and here.
- The Home Secretary of the UK as documented here.
- Microsoft as documented here.
- SCO (the Unix guys) as documented here and here.
- The California Attorney General as documented here.
Microsoft offers a tool that you can use to remove all hidden data (like track changes) from your documents found here. Here is the overview:
With this add-in you can permanently remove hidden and collaboration data, such as change tracking and comments, from Word 2003/XP, Excel 2003/XP, and PowerPoint 2003/XP files.
When you distribute an Office document electronically, the document might contain information that you do not want to share publicly, such as information you’ve designated as “hidden” or information that allows you to collaborate on writing and editing the document with others.
The Remove Hidden Data add-in is a tool that you can use to remove personal or hidden data that might not be immediately apparent when you view the document in your Microsoft Office application.
You can run the Remove Hidden Data add-in on individual files from within your Office XP or Office 2003 application. Or, you can run Remove Hidden Data on multiple files at once from the command line. In either case, to run the tool you must have the application installed in which the document was created.
The Offrhdreadme.htm file included with the add-in includes a complete list of all of the types of data that the tool will help to remove. By default, you can locate this file in the \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Remove Hidden Data Tool\1033 directory in the drive where you installed the tool. If you installed the tool to a different directory, you can locate this file in the \1033 directory, a subdirectory of the add-in installation folder.
Notes
- You should run the Remove Hidden Data add-in on files when you are ready to publish them. This is because some of the data that the tool removes is used by Office for collaboration features, such as Track Changes, Comments, and Send for Review.
- You should always save to a new file name, rather than overwrite the original file with the new document, in order to preserve a copy of the document containing the original data.
- The Remove Hidden Data add-in does not work with Information Rights Management-protected or digitally-signed files.
