Edited by BillD, 12 January 2007 - 10:10 PM.


Hidden Change Log in MS Word
Started by
BillD
, Jan 12 2007 08:52 PM
8 replies to this topic
#1 OFFLINE
Posted 12 January 2007 - 08:52 PM
I have repeatedly read that Word has a way of keeping a log of changes that are made in documents, which can recovered, that makes it dangerous to publish Word documents and that one should always save in .rtf format. Fred Langa has commented on this more than once, as have other writers.My question is, how does one access these hidden changes or log of them?Thanks,BillEdit: I should have mentioned that this is Word 2000; I have found info on Word 2002 and 2003, but that is not really applicable to Word 2000 apparently.
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#2 OFFLINE
Posted 13 January 2007 - 06:01 AM
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My question is, how does one access these hidden changes or log of them?

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The Hidden Data...Word Documents can contain all sorts of extra data, commonly referred to as "metadata". This data can include: * Hidden Revision Logs * A Unique, Identifying GUID * Comments, Keywords, Subjects, and other properties * Recent Hyperlinks * Last Saved Date * Last Edited By Information * Last Printed Date * Revision Count * Total Editing Time * and more...Doc Scrubber can remove much of this metadata from Word documents, and can also produce an analysis of any Word document to show what metadata it contains.

Striker
still the same...
still the same...
#3 OFFLINE
Posted 13 January 2007 - 02:01 PM
Thank you Striker. It appears that the changes only seem to be there if you have "allow fast save" enabled, according to this link which I just got this morning:
Thanks,BillEdit: Thank you for "doc scrubber"; I just downloaded it and tried it on Win98SE document mentioned above, and it gave more info than I had been able to get out of it before, but still did not show the changes . . .
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This whole thing came up because I was looking for something else last night and came across this link here:Quote
And since I have heard warnings for years about this, I decided to try to find changes in a document that had gone thru repeated changes just to see if it worked . . . and there was nothing significant there; it only found one change. So, in accordance with the first link above, I looked in the Word setup, and "allow fast save" was not checked by default. Never knew about it before. Needless to say, my MS Word book (published by MS) says nothing about it. Wonder what the purpose of allowing it is, unless you want to save this stuff?Incidently, what are you doing with Word; thought you just deleted all MS stuff from your computer . . . ??
Edited by BillD, 13 January 2007 - 02:03 PM.
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#4 OFFLINE
Posted 13 January 2007 - 02:17 PM
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I used the below on ...

Striker
still the same...
still the same...
#5 OFFLINE
Posted 14 January 2007 - 06:34 AM
Hello,Perhaps this guide to using the Track Changes feature in Microsoft word will be of use.RegardsAryeh Goretsky
Dexter is a good dog.
Aryeh Goretsky
Microsoft MVP 2004-2018 [Cloud and Datacenter Management]
(previously Networking, Windows, Windows for Devices and IT)
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Aryeh Goretsky
Microsoft MVP 2004-2018 [Cloud and Datacenter Management]
(previously Networking, Windows, Windows for Devices and IT)
Facebook • Google+ • personal blog • personal website • Twitter • work blog
#6 OFFLINE
Posted 14 January 2007 - 09:48 PM
BillD, on Jan 13 2007, 01:01 PM, said:
Wonder what the purpose of allowing it is, unless you want to save this stuff?Bill



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#7 OFFLINE
Posted 15 January 2007 - 04:40 PM
I don't know if this is what you are referring to: Office 2003/XP Add-in: Remove Hidden Data Unfortunately, you must FIRST allow Microsoft site to verify that Genuine Validation of your Office installation. Then you can continue with downloading the utility.Else, you can manually remove personal information from document/file properties on save.In Office/Word® Options, under the Security tab, there is a check box for Privacy options that reads:Additionally, some of the private data that is stored with each Word® document can be viewed/modified via the File pulldown menu and then clicking on the Properties of the document!Is this the direction that you wanted to go to with your original question??
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Brief DescriptionWith this add-in you can permanently remove hidden data and collaboration data, such as change tracking and comments, from Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint files.
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Remove personal information from from file properties on save.
#8 OFFLINE
Posted 17 January 2007 - 06:37 PM
the changes are there for document revision tracking; it's for companies that need to know what the document was, either to adjust wording or look back into the way it was.

#9 OFFLINE
Posted 17 January 2007 - 09:54 PM
Temmu,Those are the revisioning information.Each document also {ALSO} carries a set of information (name of owner, and many other vital stats) as a part of the generated document unless one goes thru the trouble of expunging them out!This is something to be careful about when generating resumes and such. Such information is an integral part of any Word® document.
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