Properties in an XP presentation

[Austin Myers]

John, does this help?

http://office.microsoft.com/assista...remove+metadata&Scope=TC,HP,HA,RC,FX,ES,EP,DC

Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

 

[John O]

I have a contractor making presentations. I receive them via email, save to
the lan, and review them with Ppt XP on another PC. Playing around with all
the buttons in Ppt XP, I click Reply with Changes, and the contractor's
email address is automatically inserted into the new email message that
launches.

My first response was Holy smokes (or something similar, but we're playing
Notre Dame tomorrow so I have to be nice...). The contractor's email, name,
and who knows what else is in the file. I just can't live with that!!

A while back someone posted a tool to kill off this personal data, the tool
worked for a bit then stopped working altogether. It was a bit unpolished,
anyway. Is there a better tool I should use to strip personal data out of
these presentations, or do I need to do it manually?

Part two...I opened the pres with Word's Recover Text tool, and *MY* name is
in this pres, four times. (The contractor's name is in there five times) I
created the template and provided it to the contractor, so I have a
connection to the doc, but how do I get these names out of there? And why
are they in there???

 

[John O]

John, does this help?

http://office.microsoft.com/assista...remove+metadata&Scope=TC,HP,HA,RC,FX,ES,EP,DC

Yeah, I think so. Thanks for the link, Austin. I ended up at KB article
314800, and I'm humored by the way MS believes only lawyers need personal
data omitted.

The article starts out with this explanation about the personal data: "This
information is known as metadata. Metadata is used for a variety of purposes
to enhance the editing, viewing, filing, and retrieval of Office documents."

Then there's this:

_____________
General Suggestions About Security
The following are some general suggestions that you can use to increase the
level of security in your computing environment:

<...lots of general stuff about passwords and screensavers ...>

-Do not distribute documents in electronic form. Instead, print them.
_____________


Seriously? I can't believe I'm reading this.

Why not a checkbox that says "include metadata in saved docs" That would
solve the whole problem, wouldn't it? For the presentations I will
distribute I could uncheck the box, SaveAs, and I'm still secure and
"enhanced."

Sorry, a bit of a rant.

John O

 

[Austin Myers]

I can't argue a single point you made. Something of note is that you can
only remove *part* of the metadata. Curious that no explanation is made of
what can't be removed. If I were a paranoid type I would really wonder
about what information is there that mortal folks will never have privy to.

Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP team

 

[Kathryn Jacobs]

John,
Does any of the meta data go away if you save the pres with a different
name? I still don't know that you can get rid of all of it, but I know it
used to get rid of at least the historical part....

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft PPT MVP
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[Steve Rindsberg, PPTMVP]

And if not that, then try roundtripping it through HTML.

If nothing else, you could then S&R the resulting docs and change
occurrences of "John O" to "Billy G"

--

Steve Rindsberg PPT MVP
PPTLive ( http://www.pptlive.com ) Featured Speaker
PPTools: http://www.pptools.com
PPT FAQ: http://www.pptfaq.com

 

[John O]

I used to have a machine that was used for these things...the machine name
was unassuming, the name Office asks for was the company initials, and so
on. Sort of a "sanitizer" system. With XP, I'll have to load and do the job
and reformat and reload later due to the activation.

I'll have to try the round trip through html, that sounds interesting.

BTW, I'm not so paranoid as it seems, I'm just surprised that I have to
touch every presentation like this to protect my contractor. Too bad *I*
can't bill by the hour.

Ha, and today's Woody's Watch for Mere Mortals covers the exact same subject
with Word. Woody's advice: use PDFs.

 

[Echo S]

These guys are makin' stuff too hard, John.

Open up PPT 2002, and hit File/Save As. Then in that dialog, hit
Tools/Security Options. Click the box for "remove personal data." That,
I believe, zaps the metadata.

Echo

 

[Echo S]

Oh, and you can get to that from PPT's Tools/Options on the Security tab
as well.

Echo

 

[John O]

I'll give that a try. Thanks!

 

[Steve Rindsberg, PPTMVP]

I'll have to try the round trip through html, that sounds interesting.

BTW, I'm not so paranoid as it seems, I'm just surprised that I have to
touch every presentation like this to protect my contractor. Too bad *I*
can't bill by the hour.

Who brought up the word "paranoid"? Not I. Including info like this should
be your option, not a default, IMO.

Ha, and today's Woody's Watch for Mere Mortals covers the exact same subject
with Word. Woody's advice: use PDFs.

And, depending on what's in the things, do the same for PPT.
Been to www.pptools.com of late, Mister? ;-)