Are you annoyed by the Document Information Panel (DIP) that appears every time you open your file? This panel seems to appear in some of the Microsoft Office files that are downloaded from the company’s SharePoint server. If you are, well, I have a solution for you (but it’s not exactly permanent!).
Open the Word document that you want to inspect for hidden data and personal information. Click the File tab, click Save As, and then type a name in the File name box to save a copy of your original document. In the copy of your original document, click the File tab, and then click Info. Click Check for Issues, and then click Inspect Document. In updates for Office 2013 and 2010, Microsoft has added new tools to the Document Inspector feature in Excel, PowerPoint and Word, announced Steve Kraynak, a Microsoft Office program manager.
- Click the File tab to go to Backstage view. From the Info pane, click Check for Issues, then select Inspect Document from the drop-down menu. The Document Inspector will appear. Check or uncheck the boxes, depending on the content you want to review, then click Inspect.
- Getting to the Document Inspector. And in yet another window (Figure 4) that opens you’ll see even more options. To remove personal information, check the box “Document Properties and Personal Information” and then click the “Inspect” button down at the bottom. Lots of options for inspecting your document.
Document Inspector Word 2013
But before I jump straight to the (temp) solution, here’s a brief background of this interesting encounter. I’ve been uploading and downloading files through the company’s SharePoint site with ease and the DIP has never appeared before. However, after the company has recently upgraded its SharePoint to the latest version (2013), this panel seems to appear every time I open a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file that I’ve downloaded from the site:
This is how it looks like in Word.
This is how it looks like in PowerPoint.
You can close the panel and continue working on the file, but it will reappear when you open the same file later on. Apparently, there is no permanent solution to disable this DIP, and hence, the temporary solution:
1. Click File on the tab menu and select Info. Under Inspect Document, click Check for Issues, and then click Inspect Document.
Word 2013 Document Inspector Checklist
2. In the Document Inspectordialog box, select the type of hidden content to check. Normally, I will select all. ClickInspect.
3. The Document Inspectordialog box is updated with the inspection results. Click Remove All next to the respective results.
4. When the selected contents are successfully removed, it will be indicated in the updated Document Inspectordialog box.
The steps above apply to Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2013. Do take note that, some of these changes cannot be undone. So, if you are not sure whether you want to fully remove all of the hidden contents in the existing file, just save your file as another version and remove the contents.