Hiding my identity from Word document files

Hiding my identity from Word document files
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Subject Author Date
Hiding my identity from Word document files Jim 06-12-2007
Posted by Anders on June 12, 2007, 2:27 pm
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Jim skrev:
> Is there a security utility which can help me with the following?
>
> I need to write some letters for someone else as if the letters were
> written only by the other person. I use my PC to write the leter and
> will email the other person a Word DOC file to use on their PC. We both
> use Word 2003 on WinXP.
>
> However I do not want the DOC file I send to show that I have been
> involved in any way at all.
>
> (a) I do not want data in File > Properties.
> (b) I do not want to have my default margins, font, etc.
> (c) I don't want the document file to have other data which has from
> elsewhere on my PC (perhaps temp data).
>
> ----
>
> Until now I have been sending them unformatted text but this means the
> other person has to paste it into Word and then lay it all out and put
> in all the formatting for empahsis.
>
> Is there some software which will strip out the identifiers in a Word
> DOC file to anonymise it?
>
> Do I need to use some Word function to have two different sets of
> default layout? (See b above.)

If you have the extra space, and if there is a lot of letters you have
to writhe for him.
Why don't you just create a new user in his name?
It would probably save both you and him a lot of extra work.
Just a thought.
/Anders

Posted by Jim on June 13, 2007, 7:16 am
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> Jim skrev:
>> Is there a security utility which can help me with the following?
>>
>> I need to write some letters for someone else as if the letters
>> were written only by the other person. I use my PC to write the
>> leter and will email the other person a Word DOC file to use on
>> their PC. We both use Word 2003 on WinXP.
>>
>> However I do not want the DOC file I send to show that I have been
>> involved in any way at all.
>>
>> (a) I do not want data in File > Properties.
>> (b) I do not want to have my default margins, font, etc.
>> (c) I don't want the document file to have other data which has
>> from elsewhere on my PC (perhaps temp data).
>>
>> ----
>>
>> Until now I have been sending them unformatted text but this means
>> the other person has to paste it into Word and then lay it all out
>> and put in all the formatting for empahsis.
>>
>> Is there some software which will strip out the identifiers in a
>> Word DOC file to anonymise it?
>>
>> Do I need to use some Word function to have two different sets of
>> default layout? (See b above.)
>
> If you have the extra space, and if there is a lot of letters you
> have to writhe for him.
> Why don't you just create a new user in his name?
> It would probably save both you and him a lot of extra work.
> Just a thought.
> /Anders

Anders, that is a very good idea because then the Word settings will be
different. It's a bit of a chore each time but it would work.

However - I do wonder if I can't get the same effect by swapping a few
Word parameter files in my signon.

If I swap signons the PC system identifiers will still be there. Perhaps
they may be not so hard to shift.

Posted by Anders on June 13, 2007, 12:41 pm
If you were  Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
Jim skrev:
>
>> Jim skrev:
>>> Is there a security utility which can help me with the following?
>>>
>>> I need to write some letters for someone else as if the letters
>>> were written only by the other person. I use my PC to write the
>>> leter and will email the other person a Word DOC file to use on
>>> their PC. We both use Word 2003 on WinXP.
>>>
>>> However I do not want the DOC file I send to show that I have been
>>> involved in any way at all.
>>>
>>> (a) I do not want data in File > Properties.
>>> (b) I do not want to have my default margins, font, etc.
>>> (c) I don't want the document file to have other data which has
>>> from elsewhere on my PC (perhaps temp data).
>>>
>>> ----
>>>
>>> Until now I have been sending them unformatted text but this means
>>> the other person has to paste it into Word and then lay it all out
>>> and put in all the formatting for empahsis.
>>>
>>> Is there some software which will strip out the identifiers in a
>>> Word DOC file to anonymise it?
>>>
>>> Do I need to use some Word function to have two different sets of
>>> default layout? (See b above.)
>> If you have the extra space, and if there is a lot of letters you
>> have to writhe for him.
>> Why don't you just create a new user in his name?
>> It would probably save both you and him a lot of extra work.
>> Just a thought.
>> /Anders
>
> Anders, that is a very good idea because then the Word settings will be
> different. It's a bit of a chore each time but it would work.
>
> However - I do wonder if I can't get the same effect by swapping a few
> Word parameter files in my signon.
>
> If I swap signons the PC system identifiers will still be there. Perhaps
> they may be not so hard to shift.

Perhaps 'rhdtool.exe' can be useful, it is for the XP/2003 versions of Word.

one line:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=144e54ed-d43e-42ca-bc7b-5446d34e5360&displaylang=en

/Anders

Posted by Ertugrul Soeylemez on June 13, 2007, 12:13 am
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> I need to write some letters for someone else as if the letters were
> written only by the other person. I use my PC to write the leter and
> will email the other person a Word DOC file to use on their PC. We
> both use Word 2003 on WinXP.
>
> However I do not want the DOC file I send to show that I have been
> involved in any way at all.

Others have already answered that part. However, your problem is a kind
of privacy problem. Microsoft did not care a lot about privacy, or they
did it that bad even intentionally. I don't know. But a lot of data is
saved in Microsoft Office files, quite a bunch of data, that doesn't
belong there and serves no purpose in that context. A quick binary look
at the file will show this.

This is why I would suggest to switch to something completely different,
which is not Microsoft. If quality is of matter, use LaTeX. You don't
care about the formatting, but let the professionals do it for you, so
that this `someone else' guy wouldn't even want or need to reformat it.

The other option is HTML. For example, you write the content and
`someone else' writes the stylesheet. In the worst case, HTML can be
copy&pasted into a fresh Office document, and it will preserve the text
formatting in a context-sensitive manner. In other words, it will
preserve the information that a piece of text is a title, or something
emphasized, and if you change the size, in which titles are printed,
then all titles will change at once.

Depending on how much time you are willing to invest in privacy, you
might prefer one or the other. LaTeX produces high quality output.
HTML, on the other hand, takes a much shorter learning path. There are
good WYSIWYG editors for both of them, so you don't need to learn a new
markup language, if you don't want to.


Regards,
Ertugrul S=C3=B6ylemez.


--=20
Security is the one concept, which makes things in your life stay as
they are. Otto is a man, who is afraid of changes in his life; so
naturally he does not employ security.

Posted by Rick Merrill on June 13, 2007, 5:48 pm
If you were  Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
Jim wrote:
> Is there a security utility which can help me with the following?
>
> I need to write some letters for someone else as if the letters were
> written only by the other person. I use my PC to write the leter and
> will email the other person a Word DOC file to use on their PC. We both
> use Word 2003 on WinXP.
>
> However I do not want the DOC file I send to show that I have been
> involved in any way at all.
>
> (a) I do not want data in File > Properties.
> (b) I do not want to have my default margins, font, etc.
> (c) I don't want the document file to have other data which has from
> elsewhere on my PC (perhaps temp data).
>
> ----
>
> Until now I have been sending them unformatted text but this means the
> other person has to paste it into Word and then lay it all out and put
> in all the formatting for empahsis.
>
> Is there some software which will strip out the identifiers in a Word
> DOC file to anonymise it?
>
> Do I need to use some Word function to have two different sets of
> default layout? (See b above.)


Just edit the document "info"

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