Removing hidden and personal data when checking documents, presentations or books. Organization of accounting and storage of personal data. Presentation notes

If you are sharing an electronic copy of certain Office documents with clients or colleagues, we recommend that you check the document for hidden and personal information. This hidden information can be removed before providing general access to the document to other people. The Document Inspector feature in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Visio helps you find and remove hidden data and personal information in documents that you plan to share.

Hidden information may include:

hidden data or personal information that might not be provided in Word documents

Excel data added to a workbook when collaborating with other people

hidden data and personal data in PowerPoint, which may be stored in the presentation or in its metadata.

document information and file properties in Visio drawings

Note: Unless you submit your document to Microsoft, we will not have access to any data from it.

This article describes the types of data that are typically stored in Office documents so that you can choose what to keep and what to remove in the document or metadata. For some information that the Document Inspector cannot remove, see the tables that lead to more information about Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

An electronic copy of a Word document that you want to share with clients or colleagues often contains hidden data or personal data stored in the document itself or in document properties or metadata.

Advice: If you just want to not print your notes, go to file _yt_ Seal, select Print all pages and uncheck the box print corrections.

Word documents can contain hidden and personal data of the following types:

Notes, revisions for recorded revisions, revisions, and handwritten notes If you collaborate with others to create a document, the document may contain items such as revisions and revisions, annotations, handwritten notes, and revisions. This information allows other people to see the names of people who worked on the document, comments from reviewers, and changes made to the document that might not be necessary for outside collaboration.

Document Properties and Metadata: Document information such as Author, Subject, and Title. Document properties also include information automatically maintained by Office programs, for example, the name of the person who last saved the document and the date the document was created. If you have used certain features, the document may also contain additional personal information such as email headers, submission and validation information, routes, and template names.

Headers and footers and Watermarks in Word documents can contain information in headers and footers. Alternatively, you may have added a watermark to your Word document.

Hidden text Word documents can contain text formatted as hidden text. If you don't know if a document contains hidden text, you can use the Document inspector to find it.

Document Server Properties If the document was saved to a location on a document management server, such as a Document Workspace site or a library created on Windows SharePoint Services, the document might contain additional document properties or information associated with that server location.

Custom XML data. Documents can contain custom XML data that is not displayed in the document itself. This XML data can be discovered and removed using the Document inspector.

using the document inspector

Using the Document Inspector, you can find and remove hidden and personal data from Word documents... It makes sense to run the Document Inspector before sharing electronic copies of Word documents, for example, as attachments to e-mail messages.

Find and remove the Document inspector in Word documents

In Word, the Document Inspector includes several different modules that allow you to find and remove hidden and personal information that is specific to Word documents. List different types hidden or personal information that can be detected and removed from Word documents using the Document inspector is presented in the table below.

Notes:

When sharing an electronic copy of an Excel workbook, make sure you view the workbook as hidden data or personal data that might be stored in the workbook itself or in its document properties (metadata).

With the Document Inspector in Excel, you can find and remove hidden and personal data.

Note: Although you can remove hidden and personal information from workbooks sent to others, if the Excel workbook was saved as a shared workbook, you cannot remove notes, notes, document properties, or personal information from the workbook. To remove this data from a shared workbook, first copy it and unshare it.

Search and removal of hidden and personal data

With the Document inspector, you can remove hidden and personal data from Excel workbooks. It makes sense to run the Document Inspector before sharing electronic copies of books, for example, as attachments to e-mail messages.

Types of hidden and personal data in Excel

Listed below are some of the items that can be the source of hidden and personal data in Excel workbooks.

Notes and handwritten notes. If the workbook was co-authored with other users, it can contain notes and handwritten notes. This information allows others to know the names of people who contributed to the book, view reviewer notes, and see changes made to the book.

Document properties and personal data Metadata or document properties in Excel as in others Office applications, including information about the author, subject and title. Office automatically saves the name of the person who last saved the workbook, the date the document was created, and the location of the document (Excel 2013 or later). Additional information (PII) may be available such as email headers, sending information, view, routes, printer properties (such as printer path and secret code Secure Print) and file path information for publishing. Web pages.

Headers and footers. Excel workbooks can contain data in headers and footers.

Hidden rows, columns and sheets. Rows, columns and whole sheets can be hidden in the book. When you distribute a copy of a workbook that contains hidden rows, columns, or sheets, others can display them and view the data they contain.

Document Server Properties. A workbook stored on a document management server, such as a Document Workspace site or a Windows SharePoint Services library, can contain additional document properties or server location information.

Custom XML data. Excel workbooks can contain custom XML data that does not appear in the document itself. This XML data can be discovered and removed using the Document inspector.

Invisible content. Books can contain objects formatted as invisible.

Embedded files or objects. Books may contain embedded files (for example, Office documents or text files) or embedded objects (such as charts or equations) that contain invisible data.

VBA code based macros. Books can contain macros, VBA modules, COM and ActiveX controls, custom forms, or custom functions that may contain hidden data.

Items with cached data. Workbooks may have cached data for pivot tables, pivot charts, slicers, timelines, and cube formulas that may not be visible.

Excel Polls Workbooks may have hidden Excel survey questions that were entered in Excel Online and are saved in the book, but are not visible in it.

Script manager scripts. Books can contain scripts that are defined using the script manager. They can contain cached or hidden data.

Filters. Workbooks can have active autofilters or table filters that can cause cached or hidden data to persist in workbooks.

Hidden names. Books can have hidden names that can be a source of hidden data.

Find and remove document inspector in Excel documents

The Document Inspector displays items found that may contain hidden and personal information related to Excel workbooks. The following table lists the types of such data that can be removed from workbooks using the Document inspector.

Notes:

Not all Excel functions l listed in the table are supported in Microsoft Excel Starter 2010.

If custom modules have been added to the Document Inspector in your organization, additional data types may be found.

The Document Inspector finds the following items, which may contain data that is not displayed in the workbook. He is not able to remove them, as this can lead to incorrect work of the book. You can preview each item you find and decide whether to manually delete it or replace it with an item with no hidden data, such as a static drawing.

You can search and remove hidden information in PowerPoint presentations using the Document inspector.

Advice: If you just want to not print your notes, open the tab file _yt_ Seal, click slides in size whole page and uncheck the box print notes.

Search and removal of hidden and personal data

Types of hidden and personal data

Latent data can consist of data that PowerPoint can add to enable collaboration with others to create a presentation. It may also contain information that you deliberately indicate as hidden.

PowerPoint presentations can contain hidden and personal information of the following types:

Notes and handwritten notes If you are collaborating with others to create a presentation, your presentation may contain elements such as notes and handwritten notes. This information allows other users to view changes made and the names of people who worked on the presentation, as well as reviewers' comments.

Patch tracking data. When you collaborate on a shared document that's stored in the cloud, PowerPoint 2016 for Office 365 keeps track of who made changes to the document and when.

Document properties and personal data. Document properties (metadata) include presentation information such as author name, subject, and title. They also contain information that Office programs automatically save, such as the name of the person who last saved the document and the date the document was created. If you have used certain features, the document may also contain additional personal information, such as email headers, submission for review, document routes, printer paths, and file path information for publishing web pages.

Invisible content on a slide. The presentation can contain objects formatted as non-displayable.

Content outside the slide. PowerPoint presentations may contain objects that are not visible because they have been moved off the slide. Such objects can be inscriptions, pictures, graphic elements and tables.

Presentation notes. The PowerPoint presentation notes section may contain text that you might not want to share with others, especially if the notes were written solely for the presenter.

Document Server Properties. If the presentation was saved to a document management server, such as a Document Workspace website or a Windows SharePoint Services library, it might contain additional properties or server location information.

Custom XML data. Presentations can contain custom XML data that is not displayed in the document itself. They can be detected and removed using the Document inspector.

Information that the Document inspector finds and removes

The Document Inspector in PowerPoint includes several different modules that allow you to find and remove hidden and personal information specific to PowerPoint presentations. The following table provides a list of the different types of hidden and personal information that can be removed from presentations using the Document inspector.

If your organization has added additional modules to the Document Inspector, you can check for other types of information in your presentations.

Information that the Document inspector finds but cannot delete

The Document Inspector finds the following items, which may contain data that does not appear in the presentation. He is not able to remove them, as this can lead to incorrect presentation. You can preview each item you find and decide whether to manually delete it or replace it with an item with no hidden data, such as a static drawing.

Inspector of documents and personal data

The patch tracking data that was introduced in PowerPoint 2016 Build 8403 for Office 365 Insiders is an example of the limitations in the Document inspector. For example, suppose Martha and Regina are collaborating on presentation A in Office 365. Revision tracking data (that is, usernames and revision times) is added to the presentation. If Gleb subsequently opens presentation A in PowerPoint 2013 and runs the Document Inspector to delete personal information, the inspector in this version of PowerPoint will not be able to find and delete revision tracking data that was added to the presentation in a later version of PowerPoint (Office 365) that Regina and Martha. To delete this data, Gleb will need to go to latest version PowerPoint, and then launch the Document Inspector.

You can remove hidden information in Visio in the same way as in other Office applications. Before you share a copy of your Visio drawing with others, you might need to remove certain information from the drawing and its properties.

You can easily delete the following personal data in Visio:

Notes Inserted on Document Pages

Names, initials, and revisions of reviewers

Stencil paths

Template paths and filenames

Note: If the document is published on shared server, when you open it, it displays information about who opened it and the name of the computer on which the file is stored. To help protect this data, make sure that only people you trust can access your documents.

You can find and remove hidden information in Visio presentations by following these steps.

On the menu File click Remove hidden information.

If you are using Visio Premium 2010 or later, you will find this command under File > Intelligence > Delete personal data.

Open the tab Personal information.

Check the box Remove the following elements from the document.

Advice: Check the box Warn if this data is reinserted if you want to receive a warning when you try to reinsert personal information.

To remove sensitive data from external sources, select the checkbox Delete data from external sources stored in the current document.

Note: This checkbox not allows you to delete data associated with a shape. It removes the data source from the schema, but if the data from it is already in it, it must be removed manually.

Feedback

This article has been updated 8 january 2019 d. as a result of your comment. If you found this article helpful, and especially if you haven't, use the feedback controls below to give us a number of constructive suggestions.

The easiest way to grab the tail of a negligent employee or student who gave his report or coursework “to outsource” is to look at the author or co-authors of the document. This information is saved along with other file metadata and can later be viewed by anyone. The case takes on a particularly delicate situation if the real executor turns out to be a person familiar to the inspector: an employee of the same company or a student from the same stream. Of course, a multi-storey lie will find a way out of the situation, but no matter how it later crawled out into the light. Notice the linked users of the document in the lower right corner

A banal example, of course, but it is on it that they usually pierce.

What information can be leaked

The official Microsoft help gives what can pose a potential threat to your reputation. Here is an extract of it:

• Traces of the presence of other users, as well as indications of their edits and added comments, if you worked on the document in co-authorship.
• Discolored information in the header, footer, and watermark.
• Hidden Word text, invisible objects PowerPoint, hidden rows, columns and Excel sheets.
• Content outside of the PowerPoint slide area.
• Additional document properties and other metadata such as printer path information or email headers.

Document inspector

"Document Inspector" is a handy tool for checking files for unwanted information. It is convenient for both the sender and the recipient of the document. All you need to do is go to "Details" and run a check. A couple of clicks and five seconds will turn out all the ins and outs.

The contractor has to click on delete, and the inspector - to examine the document based on the available evidence.

Prohibition of the storage of personal data

There is no doubt that the secret, confidential information needs protection. Throughout its existence, humanity has invented different ways that could prevent or at least significantly complicate access to this information, as well as encryption systems. In the XX century, new digital technologies accumulation, storage and transmission of information. Computer systems made it possible to type, edit, check spelling and spelling, transform and transmit information in electronic form, understandable for almost all computers. From that moment on, the problems of confidentiality and protection of personal information became especially relevant. Hackers, industrial spies, competitors and other ill-wishers are constantly developing new ways to gain access to information from individuals and companies.

Most of the information on the market today, called metadata, is stored in the same files that the user works with, exchanges and uses to save the history of file editing, as well as to help find and retrieve information from files. Typical examples of metadata are the name and surname of the author, information about the company, computer name, version support of the document, various hidden information, which are saved with the document, etc. This metadata is also used to generalize the procedure for storing all information about a file in one predefined location.

At the same time, most of this confidential information is stored as if by default, sometimes in a way unknown to the user and in an unknown place and form. It's no secret that even seemingly harmless settings in software products can store information that will inform the persistent user about the owner of the product or his company. An example is the Microsoft Word text editor or any other software application, which works with electronic documents and allows you to save different versions of a document in the same file using different modes. Consider a simple but very typical case. Let's say our reader, as the head of the marketing department, has been working with his team for several weeks to create a document describing the characteristics the latest development... At the same time, it was planned to send this document to the sales department to start a new marketing campaign. At the last moment, it was decided to remove several characteristics from the product description for further verification and clarification. However, it was known that these characteristics would necessarily be included in the final version of the marketing document for this product. Without considering that versioning support is activated for this document and that every change, including new version with the characteristics removed, will be saved in a file, this document has received the widest distribution. Let's say that after sending a letter with the specified file to the sales department, it got to a competitor. The latter, having viewed the different versions of the document, will be able to easily assess your current level and expected results, as well as transmit information to its developers in a timely manner. In addition, the document properties may contain the name and email address of the author of the document, so it will be considered that he voluntarily provided the document for the use of competitors.

How to organize the protection of private information and keep it from unwanted access? We will try to answer this question in this article. We will also look at places in a document where metadata can be stored, and describe the ways in which this data can be deleted, thereby protecting the document. Before getting down to business, we note that as the test object in this article, we consider the English versions of the well-known and popular text editor. Microsoft Word- Word 2000 and Word 2002 - included in Microsoft package Office. It should be emphasized that, despite the generality and continuity of these versions this editor, they still have some differences in their functionality. First of all, it is worth paying attention to readers who will immediately sit down at their personal computer.

How to access personal information

Let's start with the simplest thing - we'll show you how to get to personal information without any special tricks. This is done using a single Microsoft functions Word, which allows you to view text without formatting it. Turns out, this function can be used to view the metadata associated with a specific document. Anyone can access this data. This requires:

1. Launch Microsoft Word editor.
2. In the main menu item File, click Open.
3. In the dialog that appears, in the Files of type section, set Recover Text from Any File, select a Microsoft Word document and click the Open button.

This will open an unformatted document, a close inspection of which allows you to easily find information containing the name of the author of the document and the path where you can find the saved document.

Considering all of the above, we recommend: before sharing a document with other users, view hidden information in order to decide whether to leave it in this document for public viewing. For example, by selecting Track Changes from the main Tools menu of Microsoft Word and then Versions from the Files menu, or by setting Allow Fast Saves by using the checkbox in the Options submenu of the Tools menu, you can track any hidden or deleted information that could potentially stay in the edited document.

As you can see, accessing personal information is quite simple. Naturally, a reasonable question arises as to what are the ways to protect confidential information from prying eyes... Further, the readers' attention will be offered several of the most common techniques.

We remove personal data from documents

The current version of the Word editor provides the user with the widest opportunities in working with personal data, from manual to programmable way to delete information. Due to the fact that within the framework of this article we do not touch upon the issues of writing specialized programs, let us dwell on the most simple and accessible methods for a wide range of readers.

First of all, you need to make sure that some personal information was deleted during the saving of the document. To do this, follow these steps:

1. In the main Word menu, select Tools, and then the Options submenu. In the dialog that appears, open the Security tab.
2. In the Privacy options section, activate the Remove personal information from this file on save checkbox and press the OK key.
3. Save the document.

In this case, the following personal information is deleted from the document, for example:

• file properties: author, manager, company and the name of the last version of the document;
• usernames related to comments and track changes;
• the name Saved by is replaced by Author;
• e-mail header, which is generated by the E-mail button on the toolbar.

It should be emphasized that the specified operation is not installed in the Word editor by default. And even if such a flag is set, it will only apply to the currently activated document window. Therefore, this mode must be set for each document separately.

Another method that deserves attention is the method of manually deleting personal information. The document properties (inside the file structure) store information about the document itself: the name of the document file, its storage location, creation date, and others. file attributes... However, other metadata such as author name, company name, and document editor can be stored in document properties. This information can be manually removed from the document properties using the following sequence of actions:

1. Open document in Word editor.
2. In the File section of the main menu, select Properties.
3. In the resulting multi-page dialog, each Summary, Statistics, Contents and Custom tab may contain confidential information. To delete unnecessary or unwanted information, you must select it and delete it using the DELETE key.

Of course, the above procedures can be automated and programmed, making this process quick and convenient. However, the description of the principles of programming in Word is beyond the scope of this article and we refer the reader to specialized literature.

Where is the information hiding

the basic rule that practical people follow is: "Measure seven times - cut once." This life principle can be successfully applied to work with documents. Is it always necessary to rush to part with personal information? Where is hidden information stored? What are the ways to view hidden information? These questions will be answered in this section.

The hidden information can be found in the track changes and comments functions, which are mostly service for the Microsoft Word editor. They allow you to save intermediate information about formatting, text insertions, deletions, comments, etc., in other words, they can be actively used in the process of working on a document by one or more authors. In this case, by selecting the playback mode for all service functions, you can see all the changes made with the names of the authors. This is done using the Show menu item.

It should be borne in mind that when working on any document, it is advisable to adhere to two simple rules... The first rule is that before deleting any information, it is useful to print the edited document along with the comments. Thus, at any time it will be possible to enter this information into the new version of the document. In order to visualize changes or comments, select the Markup item in the main View menu.

The second rule mainly concerns those who forget to monitor the presence of auxiliary information in the sent or transmitted document. For such users, an automatic analyzer for the presence of the track changes mode is provided, which will give a warning about the presence of editing information in the document when trying to print it, save it or send it to e-mail from Word editor... To enable this mode, in the Tools section of the Options dialog box, select the Security tab and use the checkbox to set the Warn mode before printing, saving, or sending a file that contains tracked changes or comments (Fig. 1). So, the point of the second rule: always keep track changes analyzer on.

The second place where confidential information can be stored is the hidden text mode of Microsoft Word. This mode allows you to show or hide specified text using a special character formatting routine that makes them invisible. For example, in the process of editing text in the hidden text mode (hidden text - special non-displayable characters in the document file), you can make some notes for yourself. To view the hidden text in the Tools section of the main menu, select the Options item, and in the View tab, select the Hidden text mode in the Formatting marks section (Fig. 2).

This will cause Word to mark the hidden text with a dotted underline. Unfortunately, the developers of the editor did not provide for an automatic analyzer in the hidden text document. However, there is a very simple procedure for removing it from the body of the document when printing. To do this, select the Options item in the Tools section of the main menu, then the Print tab and activate the Hidden text checkbox in the Include with document area section. In all other cases, you will have to delete the text manually.

The third source of unwanted information leaks can be unreleased previous versions of the document. The Word editor provides the ability to save several versions of a document in the same file. These versions are present in the file in hidden text mode and can be removed as needed. They are available to all users, and they remain in the document, even if it is saved in a different format. Therefore, such versions should be removed in time, for which there are several ways.

The first method involves saving previous versions document. In this case, the current version is saved as a separate document. To do this, select the Versions item in the main File menu. Then select the version of the document that you want to save as a separate file... Then press the Open key and select Save As in the main menu File. In the dialog that appears, set the file name and press the Save key.

The second method is to remove unwanted versions from the document, which will require the following steps. In the main File menu, select the Versions item, then the version of the document to be deleted (to select more than one version, hold down the Ctrl key). Next, you need to click the Delete button.

Silent guardians of hidden information

Many readers are unaware that some procedures in Word preserve metadata by default. And they certainly do not realize that blocking these procedures allows you to remove unwanted metadata from documents. Let's talk about this in more detail.

First, consider the method quick save document. Note that it works if the Allow fast saves checkbox is checked. However, not everyone knows that if you open a document that was edited in this mode, as a text file, then it may contain information that was previously deleted from the document. This is because the quick save mode adds the changes you made to the end of the document, without taking into account all changes (including deleted information) made in the document itself. Therefore for complete removal of information erased from the document, you must turn off the quick save mode. To do this, in the main Word menu, select Tools, then the Options section and the Save dialog (Fig. 3).

Secondly, consider the procedure for combining documents. When comparing and merging documents, Word uses randomly generated numbers for the convenience of further tracking the corresponding documents. Although these numbers are hidden, they can potentially be used to demonstrate that the documents have a common source. To stop storage random numbers During the process of merging documents, you need to do the following:

1. In the Tools menu, run the Options command. In the multi-page dialog that appears, select the Security dialog.
2. Deactivate the Store random number checkbox to improve merge accuracy.

However, it should be noted that confidentiality comes at a price - the result of the merge of documents will not be optimal: it will be difficult for the Word editor to determine the number of related documents.

Knowledge is power

Everyone who has read this article will certainly have their own opinion about the problem of protecting information on personal computer and everyone will be free to make their own decision. You can follow the listed rules and not save the information, but you can lose it if you do not make any effort. The article covered the most simple ways preventing information leaks. In addition, as noted above, there are a number of programs to solve many of the aforementioned problems, which will undoubtedly make it possible to significantly facilitate the procedure for checking the content of unwanted data in documents. However, this is already a topic for another article. In conclusion, I would like to note that by protecting personal information, you can not only protect your business, knowledge and experience, but also give a decisive rebuff to dishonest people.

ComputerPress 10 "2002