MORE INFORMATION
For more information about how Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 minimized
metadata, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
314800
How to minimize metadata
in Microsoft PowerPoint presentations
Metadata is created in a variety of ways in
Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. Therefore, there is no single method that
you can use to remove all metadata from your presentations. The following
sections describe areas where metadata may be saved in PowerPoint
presentations.
You can use the Remove Hidden add-in for Office 2003
and Microsoft Office XP to remove hidden information from your documents.
For more information about how to use the Remove Hidden Data add-in, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
834427
Remove Hidden Data add-in for Office 2003 and Office XP
How to delete hidden information
To avoid unintentionally distributing hidden information, such as
the author of the presentation, or the names that are associated with comments
or with tracked changes, follow these steps:
- On the File menu, click Save
As.
- In the Save As dialog box, click
Tools, and then click Security
Options.
- On the Security tab, click to select the
Remove personal information from file properties on save check
box, and then click OK.
How to delete your user name from your presentations
To view or to change your user name, follow these steps:
- On the Tools menu, click
Options.
- Click the General tab to view the
Name and Initials boxes.
- If you do not want this information to appear in your
presentations, type non-identifying information or type spaces in the box or
boxes, and then click OK to accept the changes.
Any new presentations that you create will contain this new
information, instead of the default values that you typed when you first
installed Office. However, existing presentations may already contain this
information.
How to delete personal summary information
When you create or when you save a presentation in PowerPoint
2003, summary information may be saved in the presentation. To access this
information, do one of the following:
- Open the presentation.
To do so, on the
File menu, click Properties. The
Summary, Statistics,
Contents, and Custom tabs may all contain
various properties, such as your name, your manager's name, and your company
name. - In the Microsoft Windows Explorer, right-click your
presentation, and then click Properties.
The tabs in
the Properties dialog box may contain information that you
want to delete. - Use a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macro
or other program code to read the properties that appear in the
Properties dialog box.
To delete summary information from an existing PowerPoint 2003
presentation, follow these steps:
- Open the presentation.
- On the File menu, click
Properties.
- On the Summary tab, delete any text in the
Author box, the Manager box, the
Company box, and other edit boxes that contain information
that you do not want to distribute.
- On the Custom tab, delete any properties
that contain information that you do not want to distribute.
- When you finish, click OK.
On
the File menu, click Save. - On the File menu, click
Close.
After you complete these steps, the presentation will not
contain summary properties.
How to delete personal summary information when you are connected to a network
If you are logged on to a network, your network user name may
appear in the
Author box on the
Summary tab,
and in the "Last saved by" field on the
Statistics tab when
you save a presentation. This issue may occur even if you deleted all other
personal information from your computer. To delete summary information from a
presentation when you are on a network, follow these steps:
Note If you cannot start Microsoft Windows by pressing
ESC (for example, your computer is running Microsoft Windows
NT), you cannot follow these steps.
- If the presentation is stored on a network server, copy the
presentation to your local hard disk.
- Start your computer, but do not log on to your network.
When you see the network logon dialog box, click
Cancel or press the ESC key. - Open the presentation.
- On the File menu, click
Properties.
- On the Summary tab, delete any text in the
Author box, the Manager box, the
Company box, and other edit boxes that contain information
that you do not want to distribute.
- On the Custom tab, delete any properties
that contain information that you do not want to distribute.
- When you finish, click OK.
On the
File menu, click Save. - On the File menu, click
Close.
When you next log on to the network, do not open the file. If
you open the file, your network user name may be written in the file. However,
you can use Microsoft Windows Explorer to copy the file to either a network
server or a floppy disk.
How to delete comments in a presentation
You can use PowerPoint 2003 to add comments to presentations.
Typically, comments contain the name of the person who created them. To delete
a comment, select the comment, and then press the
DELETE key,
or click
Delete Comment on the
Reviewing
toolbar.
Note To view comments in PowerPoint 2003, click
Markup on the
View menu. Any new comments
that you create will not contain your user name because you deleted it from
your
Options dialog box, as described in the "How to delete
your user name from your programs" section earlier in this article.
How to delete information from headers and footers
Headers and footers in presentations may contain identifying
information. To delete information from headers and footers, on the
View menu, click
Header and Footer. Change
the header, change the footer, or change both. When you finish, click
Apply or click
Apply To All.
How to disable the FastSaves feature
The Fast Saves feature speeds up the process of saving a
presentation by saving only the changes that you make to a presentation.
Because of the design of the Fast Saves feature, text that you delete from a
presentation may remain, even after you save the presentation. If you are
concerned about deleted text remaining in your presentation, follow these
steps:
- On the Tools menu, click
Options.
- On the Save tab, click to clear the
Allow fast saves check box, and then click
OK.
How to delete hyperlinks from a presentation
Presentations may contain hyperlinks to other documents or Web
pages on either the intranet or the Internet. Hyperlinks typically appear as
blue underlined text strings. To manually delete a single hyperlink from a
presentation, right-click the
hyperlink, and then click
Remove Hyperlink.
How to delete your name from VBA code
When you record a VBA macro in PowerPoint 2003, the recorded macro
starts with a header that is similar to the following:
' Macro1 Macro
' Macro recorded 3/11/2000 by J. Doe
To delete your name from any macros that you recorded, follow
these steps:
- Open the presentation that contains the macros.
- On the Tools menu, point to
Macro, and then click Visual Basic Editor.
Or, press ALT+F11. - In the project window, double-click the module that
contains the macros.
- Delete your name from the recorded macro code.
When you are finished, press ALT+Q to return to the program, and then
click Save on the File menu.
How to delete VBA references to other files
In the Visual Basic Editor, you can create a reference to another
file. If a user opens a presentation that contains references to other files,
the user can see the names of the referenced files. To delete these references,
follow these steps:
- Open the presentation that contains references.
- On the Tools menu, point to
Macro, and then click Visual Basic Editor.
Or, press ALT+F11. - On the Tools menu, click
References.
- Click to clear the check box that is next to the referenced
file.
When you are finished, click OK to close the
References - VBAProject dialog box. - Press ALT+Q.
- On the File menu, click
Save.
Note If you delete references to other files, you may prevent the
macros in your presentation from functioning correctly.
How to delete network or hard disk information from a presentation
When you save a presentation to your local hard disk or to a
network server, information that identifies the local hard disk or network
server may be written into the presentation. To delete this information from
the presentation, follow these steps:
- Open the presentation.
- On the File menu, click Save
As.
Save the presentation to your floppy disk drive
(typically, A:). - On the File menu, click
Close.
- Remove the disk from your floppy disk drive.
You can now use Microsoft Windows Explorer to copy the
presentation file from the floppy disk to any hard disk or network server.
Note Because of the space limitation of a floppy disk (typically 1.44
megabytes (MB)), you cannot use this method if the presentation file size
exceeds the free space on the floppy disk.
How to delete metadata from an embedded objects
If you embed an object in a presentation, the object still retains
its own properties, regardless of what you do to the presentation. For example,
if you embed a Microsoft Word document in a PowerPoint presentation, the
document and the presentation retain their own properties. To delete metadata
from an embedded object, follow these steps:
- Activate the object.
- Delete any metadata.
- Reactivate the container document. In this example, the
PowerPoint presentation.
- Save the container document.
Note When you activate an embedded object in a presentation, only part
of the embedded object appears in the presentation. The object may contain
additional information that does not appear. If you want a presentation to
contain only a rendering of the embedded object, and not the actual contents,
follow these steps:
- Select the object.
On the Edit
menu, click Cut. - On the Edit menu, click Paste
Special to paste the object into the presentation by using a metafile
format.
After you do this, you cannot edit the embedded object. However,
the object will not contain any metadata.
How to delete your user name and organization from the Registry
When you install any program, you may be prompted to type your
user name, initials, organization name, or all three. This information is
stored in the Microsoft Windows Registry, in the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\UserInfo
You can use Registry Editor to delete the contents of these keys.
Note that if you install any program, you may be prompted to type this
information again. After installation of the program is complete, you can
delete this registry key.
General suggestions about security
The following are some general suggestions that you can use to
increase the level of security in your computing environment:
- When you are not working at your computer, help to secure
the computer by using a password-protected screen saver, a power-on password,
or the Windows NT lock feature.
- If your computer has any shared folders, make sure that you
apply passwords to the shared folders. Therefore, only authorized users can
access your shares. For more security, use user-level access control.
Therefore, you can control exactly who can access your computer's shares.
- When you delete a file, empty the Recycle Bin immediately.
You may want to consider using a utility that completely erases or overwrites
files when they are deleted.
- When you back up your data, store the backup files in a
secure location, such as a safe, a security deposit box, or a locked cabinet.
Store one copy of your backup files at a secure, off-site location in case you
cannot use your primary location.
- Password-protected important documents to make sure that
only authorized users can open them. Store your passwords in a secure, separate
location. Note that if you cannot recall a password, there is no way to recover
the contents of a password-protected document.
- Do not distribute documents in electronic form. Instead,
print them. Do not use identifying elements such as distinctive fonts,
watermarks, logos, or special paper, unless you have to--for example, for a
presentation.
- E-mail is not anonymous. Do not send a document by e-mail
if you are concerned about your identity being attached in any way to the
document.
- Do not send a document over the Internet by using either
HTTP or FTP protocols. Information that is sent across these protocols is sent
in "clear text". This means that it is technically possible (however unlikely)
for the information to be intercepted.
Additional information
For more information about the topics that this article discusses, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
290945
How to minimize metadata in Microsoft Word
documents