Remove personal or hidden information

Before you give others a copy of the document, it's a good idea to view "invisible" information, and decide whether it's appropriate to include. For example, if you use Track Changes (Tools menu), Versions (File menu), or the Allow fast saves option (Tools menu, Options command, Save tab), you can do several things to avoid unintentionally distributing hidden or deleted information that might remain in your documents.

Remove personal information

On the Tools menu, click Options, and click the Security tab.
Select the Remove personal information from this file on save check box.
Save the document.

Information that is removed or changed

When you use this option, the following personal information is removed from your document:

File properties: Author, Manager, Company, Last saved by.
Names associated with comments or tracked changes: names are changed to "Author".
Routing slip: The routing slip is removed.
The e-mail message header that's generated with the E-mail button is removed.
Versioning: The name under Saved by is changed to "Author".

Show hidden items

Tracked changes and comments

To quickly display tracked changes or comments, click Markup on the View menu.

Note Clicking Markup on the View menu will display or hide all markup in the document. When you display all markup, all types of markup and all reviewers' names will be selected on the Show menu.

Text formatted with the Hidden attribute

To view hidden text, click Options on the Tools menu, click the View tab, and then select the Hidden text check box under Formatting marks.
To omit hidden text in a printed document, click Options on the Tools menu, click the Print tab, and then clear the Hidden text check box under Include with document. If you plan to distribute the document online, just delete the hidden text as you would delete any other text.

Previous versions of a document

If you specified that Microsoft Word save one or more versions of your document in the same file, those versions are saved as hidden information in the document, so that you can retrieve them later. Because versions of a document are available to others and because they do not remain hidden if you or someone else saves the document in another format, you may want to remove the versions before you share the document.

If you want to keep the previous versions, save the current version as a separate document, and then distribute only that document.
How?
1. On the File menu, click Versions.
2. Click the version of the document you want to save as a separate file.
3. Click Open.
4. On the File menu, click Save As.
5. In the File name box, enter a name, and then click Save.
If you don't want to keep the previous versions, delete the unwanted versions, and then distribute the document.
How?
1. On the File menu, click Versions.
2. Click the version of the document you want to delete.
3. To select more than one version, hold down CTRL as you click each version.
4. Click Delete.

Field Codes

Do one of the following:

To show or hide the field code for a specific field, click the field or the field results, and then press SHIFT+F9.
To show or hide field codes for all fields in the document, press ALT+F9.

Features that store hidden information

Fast Save

If you save a document with the Allow fast saves check box selected, and then open the document as a text file, the document may contain information that you previously deleted. This happens because a "fast save" appends the changes you make to the end of the document; it doesn't incorporate the changes (including deleted information) into the document itself.

To completely remove the deleted information from the document, do the following:

If you opened the document as a text file, close the text file and open the document as a regular Word document.
On the Tools menu, click Options, click the Save tab, and then clear the Allow fast saves check box.
On the File menu, click Save.

Random number to improve merge

When you compare and merge documents, Microsoft Word uses randomly generated numbers to help keep track of related documents. Although these numbers are hidden, they could potentially be used to demonstrate that two documents are related. If you choose not to store these numbers, the results of merged documents will be less than optimal.

On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Security tab.
Clear the Store random number to improve merge accuracy check box.