Metadata and Fingerprinting

[SoxFanInVA]

I work at a law firm and we have an attorney that has received an Excel file
from an attorney on the other side of the case. There is some question as
to the validity of the data in the Excel file and it's possible it's
different from the original that we don't have access to. Is there anything
"under the hood" of an Excel file that would either prove or disprove that
this attorney has made changes to the data and not informed us of such
changes? I know it's probably a long shot but I thought I'd ask.

I've already looked at the standard metadata and that has changed from
previous versions of the file but that can just be a case of accessing the
document from another computer.

Thanks,
Tom

 

[Anthony Gaston]

Tom,

I am not sure what version of Excel you are running, but in Excel 2007 they
do have Document Inspector. Document Inspector can discover unseen comments,
revision marks from changes, version information, and ink annotations. If
you have 2007 of excel, then you would need to make a copy of the file.
Making a copy of the files is needed because sometimes you may not be able
to retrieve the metadata of a file once removed. Click on the Office button,
point to prepare and click inspect document. Click on the types of files you
would like to inspect and click inspect. This will reveal the hidden
metadata, but keep in mind your sender may have used this to remove the
content that they did not want you to view. Good luck.

--
Thanks,

Anthony Gaston
(e-mail address removed)
University of Phoenix
"Raise your role in life above your fear of an un-rewarded purpose." AGaston

 

[SoxFanInVA]

I do have Excel 2007 and tried the Inspector feature but I was wondering if
there was any other data hiding out somewhere that the typical user could
not get to without alot of hassle. Something that could be changed in VB
perhaps?