Metadata Question

[Mike]

The company I work for shares a lot of information via Word files with
outside sources. At times I worry about the "metadata" on these old word
files leaking valuable information to the outside sources we share our files
with. For example, someone might open an old file change some of the names
on it and send it to an outside source. Can the outside source open the
file and find the old names or anything else? I know this sounds paranoid
but I am just a little concerned.

How can we protect our information and continue to share information with
sources outside our company?

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

One approach is to save the information in .html or .pdf format, and to
distribute that rather than Word files.

If you're concerned about giving away other information, use Notepad to open
a .doc file so you can see what else is in there. As long as you're not
using Fast Saves (which corrupts documents), you're probably not giving away
much in addition to the text of your files.