I usually always find a way to *not* send Project source files to
customers, bosses, colleagues, or peers who are not expected to
contribute back improvements or changes to that file. If the purpose
is to only communicate information (or of the person does not know how
to use Project), then its a very risky thing to do. I recommend you do
the same.
One risk you worry about is because the person can see resource
information, this could lead release of provide/confidential
information, which could cause all kinds of problems. Another risk is
that because Project is in essence a big calculator, simply by opening
the file the other person could recompute the schedule, which will cause
the schedule that file shows to be different than it was when it left
your computer, leading to all kinds of problems, disagreements, etc.
Even if it doesn't change on open (by turning off automatic
computation), not will prevent them from making changes or otherwise
messing with the file.
I recommend you try to find a way to provide the customer a report of
the information they need. If you must give them raw data from Project,
then use Adobe to create PDF output reports showing that data. But
customers don't need (usually) data even though they say they do. They
really need your views, opinions, thoughts, etc. on how the project is
going and that is best described in a report.
If in the end you lose and you are forced to send the MPP file, you can
scrub out the sensitive data (cost rates?) by changing to zero, save the
file into another new file (so as to not corrupt you source file), and
send it to them.
There is no way to "hide" data in MPP files. Normally there is no need
to do so given Project's purpose as a computational engine on top of a
bespoke database to hold project cost/schedule data.
--rms
www.rmschneider.com