Office 2003/XP Add-in: Remove Hidden Data

Overview
With this add-in you can permanently remove hidden and collaboration
data, such as change tracking and comments, from Word 2003/XP, Excel
2003/XP, and PowerPoint 2003/XP files.

When you distribute an Office document electronically, the document
might contain information that you do not want to share publicly, such
as information you've designated as "hidden" or information that
allows you to collaborate on writing and editing the document with
others.

The Remove Hidden Data add-in is a tool that you can use to remove
personal or hidden data that might not be immediately apparent when
you view the document in your Microsoft Office application.

You can run the Remove Hidden Data add-in on individual files from
within your Office XP or Office 2003 application. Or, you can run
Remove Hidden Data on multiple files at once from the command line. In
either case, to run the tool you must have the application installed
in which the document was created.

The Offrhdreadme.htm file included with the add-in includes a complete
list of all of the types of data that the tool will help to remove. By
default, you can locate this file in the \Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Remove Hidden Data Tool\1033 directory in the drive where you
installed the tool. If you installed the tool to a different
directory, you can locate this file in the \1033 directory, a
subdirectory of the add-in installation folder.

Notes

* You should run the Remove Hidden Data add-in on files when you
are ready to publish them. This is because some of the data that the
tool removes is used by Office for collaboration features, such as
Track Changes, Comments, and Send for Review.
* You should always save to a new file name, rather than overwrite
the original file with the new document, in order to preserve a copy
of the document containing the original data.
* The Remove Hidden Data add-in does not work with Information
Rights Management-protected or digitally-signed files.




Office 2003/XP Add-in: Remove Hidden Data
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Related Resources



* Microsoft Office Online
* Microsoft Office Resource Kit
* Download SP1 for Office 2003
* Discover Ways to Work Smarter




System Requirements

*

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 Service Pack 4,
Windows XP Service Pack 1

Note: The Remove Hidden Data add-in has not been tested on Microsoft
Windows 2000. Also, the add-in cannot be installed on Windows 98 or
Windows Millennium Edition.

* This download works with the following Office applications:
o Microsoft Office Excel 2003
o Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
o Microsoft Office Word 2003
o Microsoft Excel 2002
o Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
o Microsoft Word 2002


Instructions
To install this download:

1. Download the file by clicking the Download button (above) and
saving the file to your hard disk.
2. Double-click the rhdtool.exe program file on your hard disk to
start the setup program.
3. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation.

Instructions for use:

After you install the Remove Hidden Data add-in, open the document you
want to review then, on the File menu, click Remove Hidden Data.

Note: If you do not see the Remove Hidden Data command on the File
menu, check the following:

1. On the Tools menu, point to Options, and then click the Security tab.
2. Under Macro Security, click Macro Security.
3. Click the Trusted Publishers tab.
4. Select the Trust all installed add-ins and templates check box,
and then click OK twice.

Alternatively, after you've installed the Remove Hidden Data add-in,
you can run it from a command line prompt. For complete instructions
see the Offrhdreadme.htm file, located in the add-in installation
folder.

To remove this download:

To remove the download file itself, delete the file rhdtool.exe.

1. On the Start menu, point to Settings and then click Control Panel.
2. Double-click Add/Remove Programs.
3. In the list of currently installed programs, select Remove
Hidden Data tool and then click Remove or Add/Remove. If a dialog box
appears, follow the instructions to remove the program.
4. Click Yes or OK to confirm that you want to remove the program.