SOFTWARE - 05.07.2011

The document inspector

Written in invisible ink

Several types of hidden data and personal information can be saved in a document. This information might not be immediately visible when you view the document in a program, but it could be possible for other people to view or retrieve it. Because this hidden information can reveal details about your company or about the document’s construction, you might not want to share it.

Such as?

Hidden information can include the data that programs add to a file to enable you to collaborate on writing and editing a document with other people. It can also include information that you deliberately designate as hidden. For example:

Comments, revision marks from tracked changes, ink annotations and versions.If you collaborated with other people to create your document, it might contain these hidden items. This information can enable other people to see the names of people who worked on your document, comments from reviewers, and any changes that were made.

Hidden text, rows, columns and worksheets. Word documents can contain text that is formatted as hidden text. In an Excel workbook, rows, columns and entire worksheets can also be hidden. If you distribute a copy of a document that contains such hidden data, other people might unhide it and view the contents.

Invisible content. PowerPoint presentations can contain objects that are not immediately visible because they were dragged off the slide into the off-slide area. This can include text boxes, clip art, graphics and tables.

Presentation notes. The Notes section of a PowerPoint presentation can contain text that you might not want to share publicly, especially if the notes were written solely for the use of the person who is delivering the presentation (see The next step).

What to do

Luckily, there’s a clever feature in MS Office programs - the Document Inspector - which can help you find and remove hidden data and personal information from your documents.

Step 1. Open the Office document that you want to inspect for hidden data or personal information. Click “Save As” to save a copy of this original document with a new file name. You need to do this as it’s not always possible to restore the data that the Document Inspector removes and you might want to keep it for your own reference.

Step 2. In the copy of your original document, click the “Microsoft Office Button/Prepare” (Office 2007) or “File/Info/Check for Issues” (Office 2010) and then click Inspect Document. In the Document Inspector dialog box, select the check boxes to choose the types of hidden content that you want to be inspected. Then “Inspect”.

Step 3. Review the results of the inspection in the Document Inspector dialog box. Click “Remove All” next to the inspection results for the types of hidden content that you want to remove.

For further examples of what could be hidden from view and how to reveal them, visit http://financialcontroller.indicator.co.uk (FC 03.10.03).