How to Remove Metadata from Word, Excel and PowerPoint Files
Modern Office files are zip archives that contain small XML files with document properties. These can name the author, the person who last saved the file, the company, the program version, the total editing time and the dates.
Steps
- Open the Office metadata tool. Drop in a DOCX, XLSX or PPTX file. The tool lists the properties it found.
- Choose what to remove. Remove the author, company and dates, and any preview image or custom properties the file holds.
- Download the cleaned file. Open it in Word, Excel or PowerPoint to make sure it still looks right.
Good to know
This removes document properties, not the content. Text, tracked changes, comments, hidden rows or slides and notes belong to the document itself, so check those by hand before you send it.
Older formats such as DOC and XLS are different files and are not covered. Save them as DOCX or XLSX first.
You can also use the Inspect Document feature inside Office, but a separate tool lets you check the result without trusting the same program.