Check a document before you send it

1 What a Word file keeps

A .docx is a ZIP of XML files, and several of them are about you rather than the text:

• Tracked changes — and the text each deletion removed, which is still in the file though no page shows it.
• Comments, with the name of whoever wrote each one.
• Properties: the author, who saved it last, the company, the template, how long it was edited.
• Photos placed in it, each with its own EXIF: where it was taken, with which camera, its serial number.

Open the sample Word document: it shows a tracked deletion that still says “except the east, where we lost the Lviv contract”.

2 What a PDF keeps

• Black boxes that hide nothing. A rectangle drawn over a name hides it on screen and on paper; the name is still there to select, copy and search.
• Marks for redaction never applied: until a tool applies them, what they cover is all there.
• Text no one can see: drawn invisibly, in white on white, off the page, too small. See Text no one can see in a PDF.
• Earlier versions an edit left behind, with what it took off the page. See Deleted from a PDF, but still inside it.
• Comments and their authors, the document properties, and the EXIF of every photo on its pages.

3 Remove it

Under What this document reveals, Remove it — save a clean copy makes a copy in your browser. A PDF is written anew: the text under black boxes and the hidden text are taken out, letter by letter, with the rest of each line left where it was; marks for redaction are applied; earlier versions, properties and XMP are left behind; photos lose their camera data. A Word file loses its properties and its photos their EXIF; its tracked changes are accepted — what was deleted goes, with its text — and its comments deleted, with their authors, as Word's own Accept All Changes and Delete All Comments would.

To reject a change rather than accept it, do it in Word first (Review). A workbook's hidden sheets and rows, and a deck's speaker notes and hidden slides, are part of what they are: remove them in Excel or PowerPoint.

Open the clean copy shows it in hexscope, so you can check the list is empty.

4 Many files at once

Drop a folder's worth of documents on the page, or choose several: each is listed with what it gives away, and Save clean copies saves a clean copy of every one that gives something away, as one ZIP.

For a website or a repository, the command line and GitHub Action check every file before it is published.