Before you send a Word document outside your organisation, it is worth knowing what travels with it. Word stores your name and your company, the name of the last person to save the file, the dates of every save, the time spent editing and a thumbnail of the first page. Here is how to see it, how to remove it in Word, and a quicker way when you have many files.
See what the file holds
In Word choose File, then Info. The right side shows Author, Last Modified By, dates and other properties. Choose Show All Properties for more. For the complete picture, open the file in the File Metadata Viewer.
Method 1: Word’s Document Inspector
- Save a copy of the document first, because the inspector changes the file.
- Choose File, Info, Check for Issues, Inspect Document.
- Tick Document Properties and Personal Information, and also the items that apply (comments, headers and footers, hidden text).
- Choose Inspect, then Remove All next to the findings.
- Save the file.
This works, but it is one file at a time, it differs a little between Windows, Mac and the web version, and it does not clean the metadata inside photos pasted into the document.
Method 2: Remove personal information on save
In Word for Windows choose File, Options, Trust Center, Trust Center Settings, Privacy Options, and tick Remove personal information from file properties on save. From then on Word clears the author and last-modified-by names whenever you save that file.
Method 3: Clean it in your browser
The Document Metadata Remover cleans DOCX, XLSX and PPTX files in your browser. It removes the author, company, thumbnail, editing IDs and the GPS and camera data in embedded photos, shows a report and leaves the text and layout untouched. You can drop many files at once.
What stays, and why
- Comments and tracked changes carry the name of whoever wrote them. They are content, so accept the changes or delete the comments in Word first.
- Text, tables and formatting are never changed.
- The file name is yours to choose.