Untick trust center setting to "remove personal information from file properties on save"

Brass Contributor

Anyone who know how you centrally can untick the setting to  "remove personal information from file properties on save"? Not sure when this got ticked but it didn't use to be set. And when it is set it removes the name on comments in the document. Very frustrating....

 

remove personal information from file properties on save.png

15 Replies

@NackasBV That box becomes checked when someone runs the Document Inspector (either from the Trust Center or from the File > Info > Check for Issues button) and lets it remove "Document Properties and Personal Information".

 

It's not clear what you mean by "centrally". If you mean you want to disable it for all documents that are ever saved on your PC, the answer is that you can't. All you can do is never use the "Document Properties and Personal Information" remover in the Document Inspector. But that won't prevent someone else from removing personal information and then sending the document to you.

Thanks for your reply, but i still think there must be a way to disable it.
In our environment it seems that this tickbox is ticked by default on all new documents. And this makes all names on comments and such to be removed which is very annoying when collaborating on a file. There must be a way to stop this behavior, and that is really what i am after.

@NackasBV 

Because every new document begins with that box checked, it's likely that it's checked in the Normal.dotm template (the base template for new documents that aren't based on some other template).

 

To remedy this, open the Normal.dotm template "as a document" for direct editing. The simplest way to do this is to open the macro editor (Alt+F11), open the Immediate Window (Ctrl+G), enter the command

NormalTemplate.OpenAsDocument

and press Enter. Close the macro editor, and verify that the title bar of Word says "Normal.dotm". Go to the Trust Center and uncheck the box. Close Word; if you're prompted to save changes to the Normal template, click Save.

When I follow the instructions to change the template, that setting is greyed out. 

 

@Jay Freedman 

@amz1950  When the setting is grayed out, is the check box checked or empty? 

 

When I look at it, the box is grayed out only when it's empty, meaning that personal information will not be removed from documents based on the template. Whenever the box is checked, I find that it isn't grayed out, and clicking it will clear it.

Did you ever figure this out?  My computer is doing this all of a sudden and I didn't set anything, it is driving me crazy.  I found the setting but it won't let me uncheck it. 

@LauraStovall 

 

If "Remove personal information from file properties on save" is grayed out, then some other setting is causing the loss of personal info in your document. 

 

What happens, exactly, as you reopen a document in Word?

When I open the document it has a warning at the top that says "this document is set to automatically remove personal information when saved and can impact your collaboration experience" then there is a box that says "Change Settings" and if I click that then the warning goes away and it doesn't open into any settings but then it is back when I try to open it again.  It is annoying and I didn't make any changes to any settings. I've gone through all the steps I've read online but I can't get it to fix.  It is like I have to change each document when it lets me uncheck that but then it comes back again. Hope this makes sense.  

@Stefan_Blom I'm trying to insert a photo but I can't get that to work.  Jesus what a day.

@LauraStovall 

 

You should be able to paste a screen shot from the clipboard into a reply here. 

 

Is the document stored in OneDrive? Is it shared (since the error message mentions collaboration)? 

It is a shared document and yes, it is on OneDrive. Sorry for the delayed response, I've been slammed.

@LauraStovall 

I have the same issue. Is there any way to remove this?

@LauraStovall Hi Laura, did you have any luck finding a solution. I am having the same issue and none of the suggestions have made the change persistent? Wondering if this is something that can only be changed by the original author of the template.

@Jason_Sharp 

 

To change this setting permanently, you have to open the actual template file for editing. If you are in an organization, you may not be able to do that, or you are able to do it but the template gets overwritten regularly, for example with a log-in script defined by the network admin.