The Document Inspector Removes Metadata from the Original

Document Inspector does not publish a result document, so accidental removal of metadata is very easy. When the user removes metadata accidentally using the Document Inspector these are deletions that cannot be “undone.” Try explaining that to your user!

In firms where document collaboration and client work product are the currency, accidental metadata destruction can be quite costly. Imagine a scenario where an attorney asks a secretary to send an agreement he’s been working on all-night to his client. This particular document contains his and a colleague’s comments along with their track changes. He tells the secretary to send the client a copy with the metadata scrubbed. The secretary uses Document Inspector to inspect the document and notices that this document has “Revision marks and Comments” with a red EXCLAMATION POINT! This must not be good, so he selects “Remove All” and then realizes in a panic that this was the original. He tries to “undo” the removal but cannot.

Document Inspector does not preserve the original and makes it too easy to lose important metadata from the original. As you can see from the example above some metadata is invaluable to the document production process. Along with this, Document Inspector uses the term “Revision” when in fact it is Track Changes – this is confusing.

Below is a list of metadata the inspector removes that cannot be undone for Word 2007:

• Comments
• Revisions (Track Changes)
• Versions
• Annotations
• Custom Properties
• Template Name
• Statistics
• Data binding link information for data bound fields (last value will be converted to text)
• Template name

CAUTION: Document Inspector does not always remove personal information in Office 2007 Word. In Office 2003, when personal information was removed the author info was removed from track changes. In Document Inspector the author information is NOT removed.