Removing All File Properties

Word allows you to maintain a fair number of properties associated with a document. These properties vary from document to document. Some of them are set automatically by Word, and others can be set manually by you.

Using a macro, you can clear all the boxes on the Summary tab of the Properties dialog box. The following macro tries to access all the built-in document properties, resetting them so that they contain nothing. If a non-writable document property is accessed (for example, the time the document was last printed), then an error is generated and the macro resumes on the very next property.

Sub CleanProp()
    Dim oProp As DocumentProperty
    On Error Resume Next
    For Each oProp In ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties
        oProp.Value = ""
    Next oProp
End Sub

There are also commercial metadata cleaners available on the market. These clean not only the information stored in the document properties, but also other identifying data that you might not want distributed with a document. Examples of these types of programs are Metadata Assistant (Payne Consulting Group) and Workshare Protect (WorkShare). You can use your favorite search engine to search for information on these and other cleaners.

Another approach to removing hidden or other identifying data from the document properties is to use the Document Inspector feature found in multiple Microsoft Office products. The following article gives more details on how Document Inspector can be used for this purpose:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/remove-hidden-data-and-personal-information-by-inspecting-documents-presentations-or-workbooks-356b7b5d-77af-44fe-a07f-9aa4d085966f

Note that the URL is quite long; you'll want to make sure you include it all in your browser.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11737) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Removing All File Properties.