When you share an electronic copy of certain Office documents with clients or colleagues, it is a good idea to review the document for hidden data or personal information. You can remove this hidden information before you share the document with other people. The Document Inspector feature in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Visio can help you find and remove hidden data and personal information in documents that you plan to share.
Hidden information can include:
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hidden data or personal information that you might not want to share in Word documents
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data Excel adds to a workbook when you collaborate with other people
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hidden data or personal information in a PowerPoint that might be stored in the presentation or its metadata
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document information and file properties in Visio documents
This article describes the types of information that are typically stored in Office documents so that you can decide what to keep and what to remove in the document or metadata. There is some information that the Document Inspector cannot remove, explained in the tables that accompany more details about Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Types of hidden data and personal information
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Comments, revision marks from tracked changes, versions, and ink annotations If you've collaborated with other people to create your document, your document might contain items such as revision marks from tracked changes, comments, ink annotations, or versions. This information can enable other people to see the names of people who worked on your document, comments from reviewers, and changes that were made to your document, things that you might not want to share outside of your team.
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Document properties and personal information Document properties, or metadata, include details about your document such as author, subject, and title. Document properties also include information that is automatically maintained by Office programs, such as the name of the person who most recently saved a document and the date when a document was created. If you used specific features, your document might also contain additional kinds of personally identifiable information (PII), such as e-mail headers, send-for-review information, routing slips, and template names.
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Headers, footers, and watermarks Word documents can contain information in headers and footers. Additionally, you might have added a watermark to your Word document.
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Hidden text Word documents can contain text that is formatted as hidden text. If you do not know whether your document contains hidden text, you can use the Document Inspector to search for it.
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Document server properties If your document was saved to a location on a document management server, such as a Document Workspace site or a library based on Windows SharePoint Services, the document might contain additional document properties or information related to this server location.
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Custom XML data Documents can contain custom XML data that is not visible in the document itself. The Document Inspector can find and remove this XML data.
Find and remove hidden data and personal information with the Document Inspector
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Open the Word document that you want to inspect for hidden data and personal information.
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Click the File tab, click Save As, and then type a name in the File name box to save a copy of your original document.
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In the copy of your original document, click the File tab, and then click Info.
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Click Check for Issues, and then click Inspect Document.
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In the Document Inspector dialog box, select the check boxes to choose the types of hidden content that you want to be inspected.
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Click Inspect.
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Review the results of the inspection in the Document Inspector dialog box.
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Click Remove All next to the inspection results for the types of hidden content that you want to remove from your document.Important:
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If you remove hidden content from your document, you might not be able to restore it by clicking Undo.
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If you want to remove hidden data and personal information from documents that you save in the OpenDocument Text (.odt) format, you must run the Document Inspector every time that you save the document in that format.
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What the Document Inspector finds and removes in Word documents
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If your organization customized the Document Inspector by adding Inspector modules, you might be able to check your documents for additional types of information.
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If you are using Microsoft Word Starter 2010, not all the features listed for Word are supported in Word Starter. For more information about the features available in Word Starter, see Word Starter feature support.
Inspector name
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Finds and removes
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Comments, Revisions, Versions, and Annotations
Note: In Word Starter 2010, Document Inspector removes only versions and annotations.
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Document Properties and Personal Information
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Headers, Footers, and Watermarks
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Hidden Text
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Text that is formatted as hidden (a font effect that is available in the Font dialog box)
Note: This Inspector cannot detect text that was hidden by other methods (for example, white text on a white background).
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Custom XML Data
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Invisible Content
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Objects that are not visible, because they have been formatted as invisible.
Note: This Inspector cannot detect objects that are covered by other objects.
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Find and remove hidden data and personal information
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Open the workbook you want to inspect for hidden data and personal information.
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Click File > Save As, and type a different name in the File name box to save a copy of your original workbook.
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In the copy of your original workbook, click File > Info.
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Click Check for Issues, and then click Inspect Document.
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In the Document Inspector box, check the boxes of the types of hidden content you want to be inspected. For more information about the individual inspectors, see What the Document Inspector finds and removes in Excel documents.
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Click Inspect.
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Review the results of the inspection in the Document Inspector box.
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Click Remove All next to the inspection results for the types of hidden content you want to remove from your document.Important:
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If you remove hidden content from your workbook, you might not be able to restore it by clicking Undo.
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If you remove hidden rows, columns, or worksheets that contain data, you might change the results of the calculations or formulas in your workbook. If you don't know what information the hidden rows, columns or worksheets contain, close the Document Inspector, unhide the hidden rows, columns, or worksheets, and then review their contents.
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The inspectors for Comments and Annotations, Document Properties and Personal Information, and Headers and Footers can't be used in a workbook that has been saved as a shared workbook (Review > Share Workbook). This is because shared workbooks use personal information to enable different persons to collaborate on the same workbook. To remove this information from a shared workbook, you can copy the workbook and then unshare it. To unshare a workbook, click Review > Share Workbook and uncheck the Allow changes by more than one user at the same time box.Note: Unsharing isn't available in Microsoft Excel Starter 2010. To unshare, you must use the full version of Excel.
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If you want to remove hidden data and personal information from spreadsheets you save in the OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods) format, you need to run the Document Inspector every time you save the spreadsheet in this format.
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Types of hidden data and personal information in Excel
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Comments and ink annotations Your workbook might contain items such as comments or ink annotations if you collaborated with other people to create your workbook. This information can let other people see the names of people who worked on your workbook, comments from reviewers, and changes that were made to your workbook.
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Document properties and personal information Metadata or document properties in Excel, just as in other Office apps, include details such as author, subject, and title. Office automatically maintains the name of the person who most recently saved a workbook, the date when a document was created, and document location (Excel 2013 or later versions). There may be additional kinds of personally identifiable information (PII), such as email headers, send-for-review information, routing slips, printer properties (for example, printer path and secure print passcode), and file path information for publishing Web pages.
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Headers and footers Workbooks can have information in headers and footers.
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Hidden rows, columns, and worksheets Workbooks can have rows, columns, and entire worksheets that are hidden. If you distribute a copy of a workbook that has hidden rows, columns, or worksheets, other people might unhide them to view the data that they contain.
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Document server properties Workbooks that are saved to a location on a document management server, such as a Document Workspace site or a library based on Windows SharePoint Services, might contain additional document properties or information related to the server location.
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Custom XML data Workbooks can have custom XML data that isn't visible in the document itself. The Document Inspector can find and remove this XML data.
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Invisible content Workbooks can have objects that aren't visible because they are formatted as invisible.
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External links Workbooks can have links to data in other workbooks (external links). The names of the worksheets containing that data are then saved with the workbooks but may not be visible.
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Embedded files or objects Workbooks can have embedded files (such as an Office or Text document) or embedded objects (such as a chart or and equation) that may have data that isn't visible.
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Macros of VBA code Workbooks can have macros, VBA modules, COM or ActiveX controls, User Forms, or User-Defined Functions (UDFs) that may contain hidden data.
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Items that may have cached data Workbooks can have cached data for PivotTables, PivotCharts, slicers, timelines, and Cube formulas that might not be visible.
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Excel Surveys Workbooks can have hidden Excel Survey questions that were entered in Excel for the web and saved with the workbook, but aren't visible there.
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Scenario Manager scenarios Workbooks can have scenarios that were defined by using Scenario Manager. These scenarios may contain cached or hidden data.
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Filters Workbooks can have active Autofilters or table filters that might cause cached or hidden data to be saved with the workbook.
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Hidden names Workbooks can have hidden names that might be the source of hidden data.
What the Document Inspector finds and removes in Excel documents
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Not all of the Excel features that are listed in the table are supported in Microsoft Excel Starter 2010.
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If your organization has added custom inspector modules to the Document Inspector, you might see additional types of information.
For these items:
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The Document Inspector finds and removes:
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Comments and Annotations
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Note: In Excel Starter 2010, Document Inspector removes only annotations.
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Document Properties and Personal Information
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Headers and Footers
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Hidden Rows and Columns
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Hidden Worksheets
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Hidden worksheets
Note: If the hidden worksheets in your workbook contain data, you might change the results of the calculations or formulas in your workbook by removing them. If you don't know what information the hidden worksheets contain, close the Document Inspector, unhide the hidden worksheets, and then review their contents.
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Custom XML Data
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Custom XML data that might be stored within a workbook
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Invisible Content
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Objects that aren't visible because they are formatted as invisible
Note: The Document Inspector doesn't detect objects that are covered by other objects.
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