03.24.06
Protect Your Privacy in MS Office XP and 2003
Whether you realize it or not, MS Office is keeping track of all the changes in your documents. When you send the document to someone else, if they are savvy enough, they can see all the changes you have made. This is not really a big deal, and indeed adds value to the MS Office line. You can undo edits and view modifications made to your work.
But, and there is always a but, suppose you are starting to compose a status report for your boss. You have several co-workers that are dragging their heels on the project. You start the report and as a way of safely venting your feelings you use some inappropriate terms for the hypothetical co-workers. As you continue with the report, getting it into more presentable form, you edit the part about the hypothetical co-workers to more politically correct language. You then send the report to your team and boss. Guess what, if any one really wanted to pry they could see the original report. Not a good thing!!
Microsoft has a solution, the Remove Hidden Data Tool. It is not included with Office, but is available as a download. The RHDTool is intended to be used when you publish a document for public consumption. It removes all the hidden data that Office saves by default. One exception is if you had turned on the “Track Changes” option.
I suggest you get and install this Add-In. According to Microsoft it works with the following Office Products:
- Microsoft Office Excel 2003
- Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
- Microsoft Office Word 2003
- Microsoft Excel 2002
- Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
- Microsoft Word 2002
Save a backup of your original document before cleaning it, just so you can have all of that history. Send the cleaned document to your receipients. Know that what you send is actually what they see.
