Minimizing Metadata content in Corel® WordPerfect® Documents

Whenever a WordPerfect document is created, opened or saved, the document may contain content that you do not wish to share with others when the document is distributed electronically. This information is known as metadata. Metadata is used for a variety of purposes to enhance the editing, viewing, filing, and retrieval of electronic documents. Metadata can be described as structured data about data, increasingly the term refers to any data that is used to aid the identification, description, and location of networked electronic resources.

Some metadata is readily accessible through the WordPerfect user interface, other metadata is only accessible through extraordinary means, such as opening a document in a low-level binary file editor.

Below are some examples of metadata that may be stored in WordPerfect documents:

• Username
• Initials
• Company or organization name
• The name of your computer
• Other file properties and summary information
• Non-visible portions of embedded OLE objects
• Document revisions
• Hidden text
• Comments

This article explains various methods that can be used to minimize the amount of metadata that is contained within WordPerfect documents.

Metadata is created in a variety of ways within WordPerfect documents. As a result, there is no single method that can be used to eliminate all such content from a document. The following sections describe areas where metadata may be saved within WordPerfect documents.

How to prevent the Username from being used
To view or change your username by performing the following steps:
1. Click Tools, Settings and select the environment icon
2. Select the General tab.

The following edit boxes should be visible:
• Name
• Initials

If this information is not to appear in a WordPerfect document, enter non-identifying strings or spaces in the appropriate edit boxes, and then click OK to accept the changes. Any new documents that are created will contain this information, rather than the default values that may have been present after the installation of WordPerfect. However, existing documents may already contain this information.

How to Remove Summary Information

When creating or saving a document in WordPerfect, summary information may be saved within the document. By default the following information (if input) may be present in the summary information of a WordPerfect document:

• Abstract
• Account
• Author
• Creation Date
• Descriptive Name
• Descriptive Type
• Keywords
• Revision Date
• Subject
• Typist

There are several methods that can be used to access this information:

Method 1:

1. Launch WordPerfect
2. Click File, Open and select the document
3. Click File, Properties
4. Select the Summary tab

Method 2:

1. Click on Start, Programs, Windows Explorer
2. Navigate to the document, and right-click on the document
3. Select Properties from the context sensitive menu
4. Select the Summary

It may be possible to use a Visual Basic for Applications macro or other program code to read the properties shown under the Summary tab.

To clear summary information from an existing document or template by perform the following steps:

1. Launch WordPerfect
2. Click on File, Open and select the desired document or template
3. Click on File, Properties
4. Select the Summary tab, and clear the Author, Typist, and any other edit boxes that should not be distributed with the document. To clear all information from the summary, click the Options button, and select to Delete Summary from Document
5. When finished, click OK
6. Click File, Save on the File menu
7. Click File, and Close from the File menu
8. After completing these steps, the document should not contain any summary properties

How to Remove Comments from WordPerfect Documents

WordPerfect has the ability to add comments to documents. Typically, comments contain the name of the person who created them or additional information about the document such as time and date it was created. Comments are typically indicated in the left margin next to the line where the comment was inserted.

To remove comments:

• Right-click and select delete from the menu
• Click View, reveal codes and drag the Comment tag out of the window

If you add new comments and you do not wish them to contain your username or initials, make sure that these values are not entered in the environment settings for WordPerfect.

How to Remove Information in Headers and Footers

Headers and footers in documents may contain identifying information. To remove information from headers and footers:

1. Click Insert, Header/Footer from the menu
2. Select to edit the Header or Footer
3. Remove any information that should not be sent with the document

How to remove document revision annotations

WordPerfect documents may contain revision marks when a document has been reviewed by an individual other than the author. When you accept or reject the suggested annotations, the revised text is saved in the document, and the annotation marks are removed.

Steps to accept annotations:

1. Launch WordPerfect
2. Click File, Open and select the document that has been reviewed. A Review Document dialog box will be displayed if the document has been reviewed
3. Click the Author button
4. On the document review toolbar, select the button to accept the current annotation or select to accept all annotations in the document
5. Click on the Close button, and then save the document

Note: This should remove any revision annotation from the document. Alternatively, saving the document in another file format, such as RTF will remove the revision annotations from the document.

How to Disable Slow Save in WordPerfect

The Slow save feature speeds up the process of saving a document by saving only the changes that are made to a document.

Because of the design of this feature, text that is deleted from a document may remain in the document, even after saving the document. If there is concern about deleted text remaining in a WordPerfect document, enable the formatting of the document before saving:

1. Click on the Tools, settings, and click the Environment icon.
2. Ensure there is a check in the box to “Format Document before Saving”
3. Click OK

Note: In earlier DOS versions, WordPerfect had a feature called "Fast Save". The feature was reintroduced in Service Pack 4 of Suite 8 but was called "Slow Save”. In WordPerfect Office 2000 it was changed to “Format Document before Saving”

How to Search for and Remove Text Formatted As Hidden

In WordPerfect documents, it is possible to format text as hidden. Hidden text may contain information that should not be distributed, the author of the document may want to unhide or remove it from the document.

To selectively remove hidden text in a document, perform the following steps:
1. Click on View, and select Reveal Codes
2. Click on Edit, Find and Replace
3. Click on Match from the menu, and select Codes
4. Select the [Hidden On] code from the list and select the Insert & Close button
5. Click on the Find Next button
6. When a Hidden text code is found, it can be removed by clicking and dragging it out of the Reveal Codes window

To remove all the hidden text from the document, perform the following steps:
1. Click on View, and select Reveal Codes
2. Click on Edit, Find and Replace
3. Click on Match from the menu, and select Codes
4. Select the [Hidden On] code from the list and select the Insert & Close button
5. Make sure the Replace with windows says <Nothing>
6. Click on the Replace All button

How to Remove Hyperlinks from Documents

WordPerfect documents may contain hyperlinks to other documents or Web pages on an intranet or the Internet. Hyperlinks typically appear as blue underlined text strings.

To manually delete a single hyperlink from a document:
1. Click on View, and select Reveal Codes
2. Click on Edit, Find and Replace
3. Click on Match from the menu, and select Codes
4. Select the [HyperLink Begin] code from the list and select the Insert&Close button
5. Click on the Find Next button
6. When a HyperLink code is found, it can be removed by clicking and dragging it out of the Reveal Codes window

To remove all hyperlinks in a document:
1. Click on View, and select Reveal Codes
2. Click on Edit, Find and Replace
3. Click on Match from the menu, and select Codes
4. Select the [HyperLink Begin] code from the list and select the Insert&Close button
5. Make sure the Replace with windows says <Nothing>
6. Click on the Replace All button

How to Remove Styles from Documents

WordPerfect documents may include styles that contain metadata. You can remove these styles and leave the formatting in the document. This will not affect how the document is viewed or printed.

To remove styles:
1. Launch WordPerfect and open the document that contains the styles to be removed
2. Click on Format, and select Styles
3. Click on the Options button, and select settings
4. In the Style Settings dialog box, under Available Styles list make sure only the box Styles in current document is checked off
5. In the Styles dialog box, select one of the document styles
6. Click on the Options button, and select Delete from the menu
7. Under the Delete Style from Document, make sure to enable the radio-button Leave formatting codes in document
8. Select all the styles to be removed from the document, and click OK

How to remove Undo/Redo information from a document
In WordPerfect 8, the option to save undo/redo information to the document was on by default. However, in WordPerfect 9 and higher the option is not on by default. If a document was created with the UNDO/REDO history enabled then that information may be contained in the document.

To disable the UNDO/REDO history:
1. Click on Edit, Undo/Redo history
2. Click on the Options button
3. Disable the check box next to Save undo/redo items with document

Note: The WordPerfect Software Development Kit contains a utility called WPLOOK. It can remove the UNDO/REDO history from a WordPerfect document. It may be a prudent business practice to ensure that all sensitive documents are screened with WPLOOK to ensure the removal of the UNDO/REDO history if it is present.

How to Remove Links from OLE linked objects

OLE Linked images and other objects in WordPerfect documents may contain linking information, such as the path to the linked image or object. This information can be removed from the document by terminating the link.

To remove the OLE link:
1. Launch WordPerfect
2. Click on File, Open and select the document with the linked object
3. Click on Edit, and select Links
4. Select the objects from the list
5. Click Break Link button
6. When prompted, click YES to break the OLE link

This will terminate the OLE link between the object and the associated application. Removing the link from an image or object may cause it to be uneditable.

Embedded Objects Within Documents May Contain Metadata

If an object is embedded within a document, the object still retains its own properties, regardless of what is done to the document. This includes any information not visible in the OLE box window in the document.

Publishing documents to PDF

You can eliminate metadata in WordPerfect documents by publishing the document in Portable Document Format (PDF). PDF documents can be shared across platforms and office suites, without the need to develop multiple documents. Before saving a document as a PDF, however, you still have to remove potential metadata.

To save a document as a PDF:

1. Click File, Publish to PDF
2. Click the General tab
3. Remove any text from the Author and Keywords boxes