While the new features shed some much-needed light on hidden data, it’s no substitute for good practices, Kraynak wrote.
For instance, if a filter condition is set to contain “secret,” “you may still see the word ‘secret’ if you look at the filter condition” even if all the rows are deleted. “When you use filters in your workbook, the filter conditions are cached in the workbook, even if you delete the rows that contain those values,” explained Kraynak. Similarly, Excel’s active filters may give away too much information. “Macros (VBA Code), forms, and ActiveX Controls may contain personal or private information that is not readily visible in your document, but someone who goes looking would be able to find it,” Kraynak wrote. It’s worth poking around using Document Inspector, according to Kraynak. Excel users also gain the ability to detect a lengthy list of document attributes, including links to other files, PivotTables, PivotCharts, cube formulas, slicers and timelines (Excel 2013), to name a few. With the addition of several new inspection modules, users can now uncover embedded documents, macros, forms and ActiveX controls in Excel, PowerPoint and Word Files. “In some cases, it will remove such items from your document in other cases, it alerts you even if it can’t automatically remove the items,” continued Kraynak. Document Inspector enables Office users to prepare “documents, presentations, or workbooks for publishing and sharing by checking for items that may contain hidden or private information,” he explained in a Dec. In updates for Office 20, Microsoft has added new tools to the Document Inspector feature in Excel, PowerPoint and Word, announced Steve Kraynak, a Microsoft Office program manager. If not managed properly, they can reveal more about an organization than users intend, potentially landing them in hot water.
Office files are a trove of metadata and other hidden information.