Track Changes: date/time stamp

[Guest]

Is there any way to remove the date/time stamp that comes up when I roll the
mouse over a comment or balloon? (I'm using Word 2002 in Windows XP.) I
don't mind if people know I was the one who made the comment; I just don't
want them to know that I made it at 2:00 in the morning (or that I didn't
notice the mistake the first ten times I read the document but only figured
it out on the eleventh go-through).

This is a very big deal for me -- I feel like personal information is being
included in a document that doesn't belong there. When I go into options to
remove personal information, however, all that gets taken out is my name --
NOT the date/time stamp. Please help!

Thanks in advance...

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

No, it is not possible to remove this information.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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all may benefit.

 

[Guest]

Wow -- THAT is depressing. Do you know if it's possible in any other
versions of Word...or if it's being considered as an option for the future?
Also, can you think of any workarounds that might help (disabling my clock,
for example)?

Thanks!

 

[Jay Freedman]

No, it isn't possible to have comments or tracked changes without timestamps
in any version of Word. I'm afraid you're very much in the minority on this
issue -- most people _do_ want to know exactly when changes were made, or
don't care one way or the other.

You can't really disable the clock -- Windows won't run without it -- but
you can change the time it shows, and the timestamps in Word will obey it.
Just double-click the time display in the system tray at the bottom right of
your screen, and set whatever time and/or date you want. Note that this will
also affect the creation date/time and modification date/time shown for any
files you save while the clock is changed. (But if you're on a network, your
clock may be resynchronized to the server periodically.)

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Guest]

I guess I am in the minority -- but perhaps an increasingly large minority if
more and more companies decide to move from hard-copy edits to electronic
edits! See, I'm a freelancer, and the only thing my clients need to know is
that I caught all the mistakes and got the work in by the deadline. The rest
of it is none of their business. And while I do know I can change the time
on my clock, keeping track of when I want to pretend each change happened is
just a little too time-consuming even for me.

The result of this news, of course, is that I will put off my clients from
switching to electronic edits for as long as possible.

Do you know who I would contact to beg for this feature to be optional in
future versions of Word?

Thanks for your help...

 

[Jay Freedman]

When you make a new post on the Communities web page, one of the selections
in the left-hand dropdown is "Suggestion for Microsoft". Use that, and
phrase your request as a suggestion, explaining why you need it and how you
think it should work. If other readers think it's a good idea, they can vote
for it. Microsoft has committed to considering all suggestions, and giving
more weight to ones with more votes.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I suspect you'll find most clients (a) are not really that aware of this
information and (b) don't care. My clients know I work nights, weekends, and
in my jammies, and they don't care how long it takes me in real time--only
how much time I bill them for (and most are not even too concerned about
that, since they trust me). If they knew how to do the work you're doing,
they wouldn't be hiring you to do it, and how you accomplish it is, as you
say, of no concern to them; it is for exactly this reason that I think you
will find they are not especially curious about it.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Guest]

Just did it -- thanks!

Please vote...

When you make a new post on the Communities web page, one of the selections
in the left-hand dropdown is "Suggestion for Microsoft". Use that, and
phrase your request as a suggestion, explaining why you need it and how you
think it should work. If other readers think it's a good idea, they can vote
for it. Microsoft has committed to considering all suggestions, and giving
more weight to ones with more votes.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Guest]

Hi, Suzanne --

I missed this reply when I answered your comment to my suggestion -- sorry
about that! You probably do have a point that the clients don't care all
that much; maybe I'm being unnecessarily paranoid.

That said, I've still been searching for information, and just now I found a
web page
(http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/trackchanges/HowTrackChangesWorks.html) with
this question and answer:

Q: I want to send my document outside the company. I want to leave tracked
changes in the document, but I don't want anyone to see who made the tracked
changes or when they were made. How do I do that?

Before Word 2003, you can't. The author (or reviewer) information and the
date information are permanently attached to the revision when the revision
was tracked. You can't change them, even in macro code.
In Word 2003, Tools > Options > Security. Tick the box "Remove personal
information from file properties on save." In spite of the name, this does
more than just remove information in the file properties. If this box is
ticked, Word removes the name of the author of a tracked change, and it
removes the date and time that the change was made when you save your
document. But it leaves the tracked change itself. All tracked changes and
comments will be now attributed to an anonymous "Author".

Do you know if that description is true of Word 2003 and beyond? If so, it
will influence my decision on future upgrades...

Thanks!

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If Shauna says it, it's gospel (for Word 2003). I have no knowledge of how
it works in Word 2007, but I'm betting Shauna does; I'll copy this message
to her.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Guest]

Thanks! I look forward to hearing the answer.

If Shauna says it, it's gospel (for Word 2003). I have no knowledge of how
it works in Word 2007, but I'm betting Shauna does; I'll copy this message
to her.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Jay Freedman]

I've just tried this in the Word 2007 beta version, and it does work,
although the steps are more than a little unintuitive...

The former File menu now includes a "Finish" submenu, on which one of
the items is the Document Inspector. Click the Inspect button on this
dialog, and it reports all the personally identifiable data in the
document and lets you click a Delete button for each category. You
need to click Delete for the "Document Properties and Personal
Information" category, but not for "Comments, Revisions, Version, and
Annotations". (The latter is equivalent to accepting all tracked
changes.) Then click Close.

At this point, the tracked changes in the document still display name
and timestamp. The final step is to save the document to a new name.
That file contains the changes, attributed to Author and without
timestamps. The original file still has both.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

 

[Guest]

Wow -- that's something! I'm cutting and pasting your explanation so I can
reread it if and when I upgrade...

Thanks!