Forum Discussion
Microsoft Word Metadata Query
Hi - hoping someone could help regarding a Microsoft Word metadata query. By way of background, I myself am using Microsoft Word 2010 version. I received an email attaching a Microsoft Word documen...
These dates are essentially meaningless. They are certainly forensically meaningless because they can be altered relatively easily. The modification date does not mean that any significant change was made in a document.
There is no way of seeing what changes were made unless "Track Changes" was enabled and the changes were neither accepted nor declined. This would be a very poor practice.
I am an attorney. Take a look at the editing time on some of your own documents. It is the time the document was open on a computer.
Charles, thank you for the above. Would you agree that the 'created' date (for that version of the Word document) would be accurate? Of course, it may have been copies from an earlier version, but for the version in my possession, the 'created' date would be accurate? Thank you
- Sorry, no. The created date is forensically meaningless. It is most likely the date the file was created, but not necessarily. It can be any date the creator of the file wants it to be if said person is sneaky enough. There are also things that the creator may have done that innocently change this date.