Step-by-Step Guide: How to Remove Identifying Information from Word Documents
If you are dealing with confidential information, it’s important to ensure that you remove all identifying information from your documents. You may think that just deleting an author’s name or some personal information is enough, but it’s not. The hidden metadata in your documents can reveal important details about yourself and your company. In this article, we will guide you through the process of removing identifying information from Word documents.
What is Identifying Information?
Identifying information is any data that reveals the identity of an individual or company. It can include personal details such as names, addresses, and phone numbers, or more confidential information such as financial data or trade secrets. When you share or distribute documents containing identifying information, you are putting yourself and your company at risk of identity theft, hacking, and data loss.
Step 1: Check your Document’s Properties
To check for the presence of identifying information, start by opening the document in Microsoft Word. Click on the “File” tab and select “Info”. Here, you will see the Document Properties section that contains your personal information and other details about the document.
Step 2: Remove Personal Information
To remove identifying information, select “Remove Properties and Personal Information” in the Document Properties section. This will display a dialog box containing several checkboxes. Select the checkbox that removes your personal information from the document, and click “OK” to save the changes.
Step 3: Remove Hidden Data
In addition to personal information, your document may contain hidden data such as document revisions, comments, and ink annotations. To remove hidden data, click on the “Review” tab and select “Inspect Document” in the “Protect” group. This will display a dialog box that allows you to choose the types of hidden data you want to remove. Select the checkboxes for the types of data you want to remove, and click “Inspect”. Once the inspection is complete, click “Remove All” to delete the selected data from the document.
Step 4: Save the Clean Document
After removing all identifying information and hidden data from the document, save it as a new file to ensure that the original document is still available in case you need it in the future. To save the clean document, click on the “File” tab, select “Save As”, and give it a new name.
Conclusion
Removing identifying information and hidden data from your Word documents is crucial in protecting your personal and confidential information from being revealed to unintended parties. Following the above steps can help you in keeping your data safe and secure. Remember to always check for identifying information before sharing your documents, and to save clean copies of your work.
