Author Information in Office Files

Office files such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files can retain author information.

Even if you do not write a name in the body text, personal names, company names, user names, template names, revision history, and comments may remain in the file's internal properties. When sharing materials anonymously, this becomes a strong clue.

This article organizes how author information in Office files relates to anonymity.

What author information is

Office files contain not only the body of the document, but also information about creation and editing.

Office files are convenient formats for collaborative editing and review.

That convenience becomes a risk for anonymity.

Tracked changes and comments

Office documents can retain tracked changes and comments.

Even if you think you have cleaned up the body text, if comments contain real names, email addresses, internal conversations, or reasons for decisions, people involved can be identified from them.

For Office files, looking only at the visible page is not enough.

Check review information and hidden information.

Converting to PDF does not make it safe

Converting an Office file to PDF does not necessarily make it safe.

The converted PDF may still contain a title, author, and creation software. Also, if you share the original Office file through another route, the author information remains there.

When preparing a publication copy, check both the original Office file and the converted PDF.

However, if you upload the original file to an external conversion service or online document inspection service, the service may receive the document contents, author information, and access information. For high-risk materials, prioritize conversion and inspection in a local environment.

Check procedure

When handling Office files anonymously, create a publication copy.

For whistleblowing and reporting materials, there are situations where you should not decide how to handle the file alone.

You need to think about both evidentiary value and anonymity.

Typical situations where author information remains

Author information is inserted in places the person may not notice.

Documents created on a company-issued PC, materials created with a school account, files created under an OS user with a personal name, and collaboratively edited documents can contain information about the creation environment.

Office files carry information about the environment where they were created.

If you publish anonymously, check information about the creation environment too.

Recheck after deletion

Even if you think you deleted author information, a name may remain somewhere else.

Check comments, tracked changes, hidden sheets, links, filenames, and properties after PDF conversion. Especially in Excel, it is important not to judge only by the sheets you can see.

Author information is not only a problem for the person publishing.

Names of co-editors, supervisors, colleagues, teachers, students, and family members may also remain. For anonymity, check not only whether your own name appears, but also whether names of people involved appear.

Be careful with Office files you receive

Author information in Office files is not only a problem with files you created yourself.

If you publish materials received from someone else as-is, you may send that person's name, organization name, and edit history outside. For anonymity, you need to protect not only your own information, but also information about providers and people involved.

Before publishing an Office file you received, create a publication copy and check the author information.

Separate the creation environment

For documents where anonymity matters, it is safer to separate the environment from the creation stage.

If you use an Office environment you use under your real name, a company-issued PC, a school account, or personal cloud storage, author information and sharer information are more likely to be inserted. You can delete it later, but the checking burden is smaller if you do not mix environments from the beginning.

Even if you separate the creation environment, you still need to check the body text and filename.

However, by not using a real-name environment from the start, you can reduce information that you might forget to remove later. For anonymity, what matters is not only deletion, but also designing things so they do not mix.

Summary

Office files can retain authors, company names, last modified by, comments, tracked changes, hidden sheets, and links.

For anonymity, check not only the body text, but also information inside the file.

Author information may remain even after conversion to PDF.

Before publishing, create a publication copy and check both the original file and the converted file.

For high-risk materials, it is also important to use a trusted consultation channel in order to balance evidentiary value and safety.

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