The Inspect Document option in PowerPoint enables you check your presentation for such hidden properties and personal information, and clean whatever information or data you want removed. Note: It is recommended to create a copy of your presentation before cleaning up the content using the Inspect Document option. Embedding external data assets into your presentations in PowerPoint for the Mac enables you to create portable projects you can use on more than one computer. Especially if you share files with Windows users, you'll need to choose and embed these external files.
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Everything you do generates data somewhere. That data, when collected and analyzed, becomes information. That information can tell someone more about you than you probably want them to know.The information collected over time can tell someone everything about you and can be used to help or harm you.
This data is known as metadata. What is Metadata?Metadata is data about data. Don’t you hate it when peopleuse a word to define that word? Data is facts that are completely objective.
Itcannot be reasonably disputed. One is one and zero is zero. The temperature iswhat it is. Today’s date is today’s date. You get the point.Metadata is facts about a single piece of data. Let’sillustrate this with the example of writing a letter in Microsoft Word.
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When the ones and zeroes are turned into the letter, thereis other data about the letter that gets created. Some of that metadataincludes when you typed the letter, who typed the letter, when it was lastsaved, what version of Word was it created in, all these are data about thedata or metadata. What Does Metadata Do?In Microsoft Office, most of the metadata is there just foryour benefit. It can help you find the newest version of a document or see whocreated the document so you could ask them questions about it. It helps to keeptrack of edits or comments on documents. It is also used by the Office program and other programs towork with the document.
Windows Explorer uses the information to categorize andsort documents, for example. Why Would I Want to Remove Metadata?Let’s go back to the letter you’re sending to theauthorities about something sketchy going on at work. You’re doing thisanonymously because you fear retribution, or you just don’t want to be involvedbeyond bringing it to the authorities’ attention.
It’s whistleblowing.You go all out and get a temporary e-mail address and sendit from a public computer at a library to cover your tracks. Because ofmetadata, the document may have information that can be used to link it back toyou. It even may still have your name attached to it.Even worse, changes you made to the document, although nolonger visible to you, may still be in the document. If you wrote a paragraphabout something specific to you but then removed it because it could be used toidentify you, it still could be a part of the file in the form of metadata.
How Can I View Office Metadata?Following is a list of methods to see what metadata isattached to your Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files. Metadata surrounding e-mailsent from Outlook is far more complex and beyond the scope of this article. View Metadata in Word, Excel, or PowerPointWith the document, workbook, or presentation open that youwant to check:Click on File in the top-left corner.
Once the extraction is done, you’ll see three folders and an XML file. Explore in these files to see what information is stored there. If you double-click on an XML file, it will likely open in Internet Explorer.It will look odd, but you should be able to make out what most of the information means. There are two XML files that may contain your name: core.xml in the docProps folder, and document.xml and people.xml, both in the word folder. How to Delete Metadata from Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPointIt took a long time to get here, but if you’re going to dosomething like this you should know exactly why. Let’s get on with it.
Delete Metadata in Word, Excel, or PowerPointClick on File in the top-left corner. Save your document now to ensure the data doesn’t get re-entered. How to be Certain the Metadata was DeletedGo through the steps above for View All Metadata in Word,Excel, or PowerPoint. Upon inspecting the core.xml, document.xml andpeople.xml files, you should see that there is no personal data in the documentanymore.If you change the extension back from.zip to.docx, you’llbe able to open the file normally in Word again. How to Delete Metadata in Windows ExplorerThis is a good method if you want to strip metadata fromseveral files quickly. Doing this for 2 or more files can be done in a matterof seconds.Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the file you want to remove metadata from.
Right-click on the file and click on Properties.
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January 2023
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