If you called your manager a "fat jerk" in your original draft, but later changed it to "our illustrious leader", that "fat jerk" comment is still floating around in the hidden data waiting to be dsicovered. If you offered one client a price 25% less than normal, and then edited the price back to the original before sending it off to another client, they may stumble onto the hidden data and be upset about the disparity in pricing.
Having hidden data exposed could be embarrassing, it could cause hurt feelings or lost business, it could result in leaking proprietary information or trade secrets, or it could result in revealing sensitive personal information which could be used to steal your identity.
Long story short, you would be wise to clear out the hidden data before you share the file. Luckily, Microsoft provides a free tool to allow you to do just that.
Downloading The Remove Hidden Data Tool
- Go to the Remove Hidden Data Tool download site at microsoft.com
- Note: you will have to validate that your copy of Microsoft Office is legally licensed in order to download this tool
- After validating your version of Microsoft Office, click on the Download button
- Choose a location on your hard drive to download the tool
- Once the download is complete, click on Run to install the tool
- Answer prompts to install Remove Hidden Data tool
Using The Remove Hidden Data Tool
- Open the Microsoft Office file that you want to remove hidden data from
- Click File on the toolbar
- Select Remove Hidden Data
- Provide a name to save the new version of the file
- Note: you can not save the new file under the same file name as the file you are removing the hidden data from. You can try using the same file name with "_rhd" for "remove hidden data" at the end, or come up with some other unique designation that will help you identify which files have already had the hidden data removed.
- Click Finish to complete the hidden data removal
- Notepad will open to display a text file of the remove hidden data log, providing details about the hidden data that was detected and removed from the file
- Close Notepad, and you're done
