OFF98: Unique Identifiers and Microsoft Office 98 Documents (222910)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Office 98 Macintosh Edition
  • Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition
  • Microsoft PowerPoint 98 Macintosh Edition
  • Microsoft Word 98 Macintosh Edition
This article was previously published under Q222910

SUMMARY

When you create a document in any of the programs listed at the beginning of this article, a unique identifier may be created within the document.

This article explains how and why these unique identifiers are created in documents, and provides you with some information about an update that will prevent unique identifiers from being added to your documents ion the future.

MORE INFORMATION

How and Why Unique Identifiers Are Created in Office Documents

When you create a document in any of the programs listed at the beginning of this article, the program generates a unique identifier, in the form of a number, which is stored within the structure of the document, when you save it. The purpose of the unique identifier is to allow third-party tools to work with and reference documents created in Office programs.

There is no way to use the unique identifier to identify the author of a document without intimate knowledge of the personal computer on which the document was originally created. Since this information is available only to the owner of the computer, it is not possible to determine the author of a document simply by looking at the document itself.

How to Download and Install the Office 98 Unique Identifier Patch

A patch has been made available that will prevent unique identifiers from being placed into your Office documents in the future.

To obtain the Microsoft Office Unique Identifier patch, see the Microsoft World Wide Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/macoffice/productinfo/98dl/Off98UniqueIdentifierUpd.htm
  1. Double-click Off98 Unique Identifier Updater.
  2. In the dialog box that displays the Readme file for the Off98 Unique Identifier Updater, click Continue.
  3. In the Off98 Unique Identifier Updater dialog box, click Update.
A new copy of the Microsoft Office 98 file is copied to your Microsoft Office 98:Office folder.

Note: The version number of the new Microsoft Office 98 file is 8.0 (6316).

How to Remove Unique Identifiers From Existing Documents

To remove the unique identifiers that are stored in any existing files, follow these steps:
  1. Open the file.
  2. For Word documents only, click Word Count on the Tools menu. Click Close when the word count is finished.
  3. Click Save As on the File menu.
  4. Click Save. When you are prompted, choose to Replace the existing file.
  5. On the File menu, click Close.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:11/25/2003
Keywords:kbinfo KB222910
©2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.