What your documents reveal about you

Word, Excel and PowerPoint

Modern Office files are ZIP archives full of small XML files. Alongside your content, they usually store:

• Names. The author, and the person who last saved the file. Both come from the Office account or computer settings, so they are usually real names.
• Organisation. A company name copied from the Office licence, sometimes a manager, and the name of the template the document started from.
• Comments. Every comment and reply, with its author’s name and a timestamp, until someone deletes them.
• Tracked changes. Until changes are accepted or rejected, deleted text is still in the file, along with who deleted it and when.
• Hidden content. Hidden text in Word, hidden sheets in Excel, hidden slides and speaker notes in PowerPoint.
• History. Creation and last-saved dates, the last time the document was printed, a revision count and the total editing time.
• File paths. Templates and links can be stored as full paths such as C:\Users\jdoe\…, which reveal a computer username and folder names.

PDFs

PDFs keep a smaller but still revealing set of properties:

• Author and title. Often inherited from the Word or PowerPoint file it was made from, including working titles like “Draft v3, do not send”.
• Creator and producer. The app the document was written in and the software that made the PDF. Together they hint at how it was made: exported from Word, printed from a browser, scanned, or generated by a system.
• Dates. When the PDF was created and last modified, according to the computer’s clock.
• Earlier versions. PDFs can be saved incrementally, appending changes to the end of the file. Earlier content can survive inside the file even if it’s no longer shown.
• Extras. Form field values, attachments, annotations and occasionally JavaScript.

How to remove it

With Metvoro

Analyse the file, then choose “Download clean copy”. Metvoro removes names, company, template, editing time and other properties, then re-checks the copy and lists anything still inside, such as comments or tracked changes.

Microsoft Office

On Windows, go to File › Info › Check for Issues › Inspect Document. The Document Inspector finds comments, revisions, document properties, hidden text and more, and removes them for you. On a Mac, Word’s privacy options let you remove personal information from the file when you save it.

LibreOffice

Open Tools › Options › LibreOffice › Security, then Options, and turn on “Remove personal information on saving”.

PDFs

Fix the source document first, then export a fresh PDF. Adobe Acrobat Pro can also remove hidden information and metadata from an existing PDF. Simply editing the properties may leave older versions inside the file if it is saved incrementally.

A checklist before sending

1. Accept or reject all tracked changes.
2. Delete comments you don’t intend to share.
3. Unhide and review hidden sheets, slides and text, or delete them.
4. Check speaker notes in presentations.
5. Clear the author, company and title fields if they matter.
6. Export a fresh PDF rather than sending an edited one.
7. Run the file through Metvoro to confirm what’s left.