HOW TO: Check Document Properties and Remove Author Information (Microsoft Word) (2023)

Introduction

Check document properties and remove author information BEFORE sharing a file, and avoid sharing hidden data or personal information. A MUST KNOW when sharing quotes, your resume or legal documents.

In this video I'll show you how you can confidently share a file knowing that hidden data has been checked and removed so that information that is private to you or your business REMAINS private!

Privacy is so important, and sharing information that you would rather others didn’t see can be disastrous. Some information can even travel into a PDF (I’ll show you in this video). Do this simple check so that you can feel more confident when you share your files.

Carry out this check before you share your resume, legal documents, quotes and proposals and be reassured you’re not sharing confidential information.

👀 Read the full blog post here: www.excelatwork.co.nz/2021/07/28/are-you-endangering-the-privacy-of-your-clients-and-team-members/

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❤ VERSION FRIENDLY ❤
Try this with Microsoft Office 2010, Office 2013, Office 2016, Office 2019 and Office 365.
Sharyn’s using the desktop version of Office 365 as part of the Office 365 Business Premium subscription.

#MicrosoftOfficeTutorial #MicrosoftOfficeTips #MicrosoftWord #ExcelatWork

Video

- Hey there, how often do you open a document and do a File, Save As to save a copy of the original document? And then amend the new copy? Look, I, know, I, do it all of the time.

That saves me a lot of time and a lot of hassle, but did you know that there could be some private information in the original copy that has now traveled into the saved copy or the copy.

You've just created? A lot of people don't so I'm going to show you where you can find that information and deal with it.

(tranquil, music), Hey, I'm, Sharyn from Excel at Work, where we offer straightforward, non-technical assistance to help.

You become a confident, super productive and super safe user of Microsoft, Office.

In.

This video, I'm going to run through the scenario of opening up an original copy, making a copy of that document and then going and finding the information that may travel with it.

I'll show you where it lives and how you can easily and confidently get rid of it.

Knowing that the private information is now not going to be a part of that document.

I'll also show you how the information can even travel into a PDF, I know, something to watch out for for sure.

Hi there.

So I, wanna talk to you about another situation that I see people get wrong quite often and it's so easy to get wrong.

I.

Wanna talk about, I mean.

This is just a normal general kind of situation that happens at work.

A lot.

Here's, a scenario.

So, I've sent an email to Anne saying, hey, look, I've, attached a quote.

This.

Obviously has gone out already to a client and I'm just saying, hey, look, do a File, Save As and use this to create a copy for another company.

I'm, very creative with my company, names.

ABC, Limited, XYZ, Limited., So.

What we're doing here is we've kind of like doing something that a lot of people do many, many times throughout the week, when they're working.

So, if I just kind of open up this file, and we'll just have a look at the information.

Go to Enable Editing.

And what we're gonna do here is we're just going to, obviously I could just do a File, Save As.

So if I go File, Save, As and I'll, just maybe go to This PC and go into the Documents and I'll just call it XYZ.

Quote, 'cause, I, wanna keep obviously the information that's in the quote and I'll just make it for XZY.

Company, that's, nice and easy.

So.

I'll, just come in here.

Xyz, I, won't bore you.

I.

Think you get the gist of what you'd do and of course, you'd put the address in here, I'll, just make it really 789.

High, Street., (chuckling), So there we go, so obviously a bit different name for the person and so on.

And so forth.

I was making it to myself, that's, really clever, isn't, it?, Not, very creative at all.

So we'll do TE Bear and we'll just go, hi Ted or dear Ted, there you go.

So that would be easy, nice and easy and of course.

You just have to make tiny little tweaks to what you're actually doing and within minutes, you can have this fantastic quote out to people and of course, I've saved it.

So I know that that's obviously going to the right, company., Now, I, wanna show you this.

So.

If I go over to the File tab and I come down to Info.

And when I come down, here, I, wanna show you something that a lot of people don't, understand., Okay, so down here we have what's called metadata.

And this travels with the document.

Now I mean, at this time.

Obviously, it's got XYZ Limited up here.

But this is something I'd like you to start just checking.

If.

You are doing a File, Save As.

Please come in here and check to make sure that there aren't any titles in here or tags, because some documents, if you're using like SharePoint folders, they can automatically be tagged when you're putting the document into them.

So, just be careful that there isn't kind of information in there that would look really bad if you're sending it out.

Imagine.

If these two were competitors.

So, it would look terrible if you'd just done a File, Save, As., The.

Other thing that I would like to point out is that it actually may hold on to the author information, where this information came from., So.

If I was a key account manager and obviously I'm not, Sharyn, Baines, isn't, the key account person or isn't.

The key account manager for XYZ, it's meant to be Anne, that would look pretty bad.

If it's kind of coming from the wrong.

Author.

Another thing that I saw just recently, actually from a friend who sent me this CV to just check to see what was on the CV and make sure that it was all good.

And it was.

It was fantastic, but I did notice that obviously he'd taken somebody else's kind of CV and used that as a template.

It was definitely his information that was in there, I can tell you that.

But unfortunately, he had the person's name down in here.

So I kind of went to him and said, I.

Think you should remove that name and put your name in there, okay? So, be careful.

If.

You were sending your resume to somebody and had somebody else's name in there, one.

It may look like you didn't actually, do it too,? It may look like essentially not an original.

So if you're wanting to make sure that you are safe, of course, you can go in here.

And you can just delete this information, out.

It's, pretty easy.

And if you are a little bit freaked out now and you're kind of thinking, oh, my goodness, really?, How do I actually get, just go Remove Person.

How do I get in and check that everything's out of there,? You can go into Properties.

Advanced Properties, have a really good look through here and make sure that you're happy.

There.

You go, there's a quote in there, a title in there.

So I think, if you do a right-hand mouse, click., No, press, Delete, it should actually once I say, Save, it should go away.

We'll just go and check that and General, how we looking? It's looking okay.

So.

If I go Save, and we'll go back in and have a look at those Advanced Properties and make sure they're all good.

And, Contents, yeah, look at that, that's, much better, isn't, it?, Making.

You feel better now?, Hey, look.

So there is something that you do need to understand and I'll just quickly whip back and show you.

I should have shown you before I actually changed everything.

But oh, by the way, there is something called Inspect Document and I will put a link to a blog that I've done about this, it's got a lot more information in it about using the Inspect Document.

If you'd want to kind of like really go through a document and make sure that it's got everything out of it, like hidden text, or track changes, or anything like that, you can go in there and do that.

So look for that link in the description, if you want it.

Okay, so I will come out of here.

And hopefully you kind of get that and I'm just gonna shut this down.

So.

Here, I am in Word again and I.

Just want to talk to you about, I mean.

Nobody is perfect (chuckling) and that's.

Me.

So.

This was made just recently, I actually did this for a client and completely forgot to actually look and check.

Here.

I.

Am teaching you and I was in just such a rush that I didn't check and of course, I'd, actually, just gone File, Save As.

And their original document was an Excel Step 1 or Stage 1 file.

So I'll just leave that in there and I'll show you what happened.

So I just went, obviously, save a copy.

And then I just saved it as a PDF to send off to the client.

So obviously I'd just gone there, I.

Think there might be on in there.

Already actually.

I'll just go over the top of it.

There.

We go.

And what I'll do is I'll make my way out and I'll open up the PDF and I.

Just wanna show you how I noticed how I'd done that incorrectly.

So go out of here.

So we'll come in here and go and find that file, here.

We go.

And look up, here., So, straight away.

You can see that it's actually held onto the title from the document and popped that into the PDF settings and of course, that would look really bad.

If that was another customer's name up there, especially with the word Quote on it.

So, be careful, okay? Just, slow down a little bit.

And what I should have done is actually gone into that.

Word document, I'll, go back into it and of course, I could of just gone, gosh, Info and then into here and just taken it out.

Just taken it out and done a Save and of course, as soon as you save, then, you know that you're all good to go, so it's, actually saving because obviously it's up on OneDrive and we're good to go.

So.

Now if I was to go PDF, should we just do it?, We'll, go File, and Save, a Copy and PDF.

And, Save, it'll, go over the original and Yes.

And we work our way down to where it is and open it up.

There.

We go, much better, much safer., So, look, I hope.

What I've just gone through is helpful for you.

It might have just opened up a little bit of information that you never were aware of, but I'm sure you can appreciate that it's a good idea just to slow down and go and do a check on those documents.

So.

You can do it in Excel.

Word, PowerPoint, just go and check, okay?, Make, sure that it's nice and clean.

And obviously, if you need to get out that author, you don't want to actually have it in there.

All, righty, so yeah, let me know what you think.

So, I, really hope that this instruction has been helpful and it's going to help keep your information private.

If.

This has been helpful, please, let me know in the comments below.

And if you want to stay connected, just hit that Like button, and please make sure that you subscribe because we're sharing new videos regularly.

And if you know someone who would benefit from this help, please be sure to share this video with them.

Hey.

Thanks for watching and have a fabulous day.