Delete comments hidden in your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

Anyone who works in MS Word, Excel, or PowerPoint must absorb today's tip, especially if you share your files with others. It'll keep your secret collaborations under the radar.

Let's say you send a document to a few people and add some hidden data you want to keep private. Only a few people can access your hidden comments and make changes to them, even though a larger group has access to the main file.

At some point you'll want to remove that hidden info so nobody can uncover it. I don't want to be sneaky or anything, but something tells me this could come in handy in sticky situations.

To do it you'll need:


To use the add-in, install it, open the file you want to modify, and choose Remove Hidden Data from the File menu. You can also modify multiple files from the command line. You'll find the instructions in the 1033 subdirectory of the removal tool's folder. For example:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Remove Hidden Data Tool\1033

I'll admit I've never hidden anything inside a Word doc, Excel spreadsheet, or PowerPoint presentation, but if I ever do, it's good to know I can get rid of the incriminating evidence, er, collaboration information, that nobody else needs to see. :-)

Happy deleting,
Sarah