Re: Microsoft Word File and Properties Information.
- From: Jay Freedman <jay.freedman@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:16:42 -0400
On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:37:02 -0700, David Cooper <David
Cooper@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I received an e-mail last year that contained a Microsoft Word File whose
Properties File shows that it was not even first created until about 6 weeks
after it was allegedly written! Does anyone know how to get as much detailed
information as possible from the Properties Logs of a Microsoft Word File?
For example precisely when the File was first created? By whom? On which
Machine? etc etc
No, the properties stored in the file are completely untrustworthy for
any such purpose.
The "creation date", for example, proves nothing about when the
document was written. It could have been written in another file and
then the File > Save As command could be used to save it to a new file
name; the "creation date" of the new file would be the date of the
command, not the date the material was written. Similarly, the command
Insert > File could be used to place the text of an older document
into a new file.
For the most part there is no such thing as a property log in an
Office file, which saves only the latest information, not an ongoing
list of actions. The main exception is the Track Changes feature, but
again that's easily manipulated.
There _may_ be a unique identifier in the document, associated with
the MAC address of the network card on the machine where the current
file was created (subject to the same caveats as the creation date),
but the user could have turned off the option to create the
identifier, or could have removed it with the Remove Hidden Data
add-in (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=834427).
Basically, for forensic or legal purposes, a Word document isn't worth
the electrons it's printed on.
--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
.
- Prev by Date: Do Word and Excel have tabs (not indentations or spaces)?
- Next by Date: Displaying file name and path in footer
- Previous by thread: Do Word and Excel have tabs (not indentations or spaces)?
- Next by thread: Re: office 2007 documents not printing and no error messages
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
