Using the Document Inspector

PowerPoint 2007 presentations are often shared outside organizations, which can create some privacy issues that most people don’t usually consider. Hidden data that includes personal or sensitive information can be stored in a presentation, and it’s easy to forget that the data is there—especially if you aren’t aware that PowerPoint 2007 is recording it in the first place.

PowerPoint 2007 has a special feature that helps you locate this type of information: the Document Inspector. When you launch the Document Inspector, it will search your presentation for several types of information, including the following:

  • Comments and annotations. If this data is not removed, others can see the names of people who worked on your documents, comments from reviewers, and changes made to the document.

  • Document properties and personal information. Removing this information ensures others don’t see the name of the person who most recently saved the document, when the document was created, or personal identifiers such as e-mail headers, send-for-review information, routing slips, printer paths, and file path information.

  • Invisible on-slide content. Although not easily seen by most, objects formatted as invisible for placeholder or other reasons can sometimes be discovered by others. Hidden text is another item that the Document Inspector can find for you.

  • Off-slide content. This identifies items that were dragged off the slide into the off-slide area, such as text boxes, clip art, tables, and graphics.

  • Presentation notes. It’s easy to forget text placed in the Notes pane of a PowerPoint 2007 presentation because it doesn’t appear on the screen. However, many notes are meant for private use; the Document Inspector helps you find them.

  • Custom XML data. You can find this identifying coding data and remove it with the Document Inspector.

It’s your choice, of course, whether to remove the information the Document Inspector finds for you. To use the Document Inspector, follow these steps:

  1. Click the Microsoft Office Button, and point to Prepare.

  2. Click Inspect Document.

  3. The Document Inspector dialog box will open, as shown on the next page.

    Custom XML data
  4. Select the information you want the Document Inspector to search for by selecting the corresponding check boxes.

  5. Click Inspect.

    When the Document Inspector has completed its search, the dialog box shown next will appear with the inspection results. A Remove All button will appear to the right of items found—if you want to remove all the items, click the button. If you do not, you can always go into the document and remove individual items.

    Custom XML data
  6. Click Close.

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