Metadata in Word, Excel and PDF

Updated: August 25, 2026

An office document carries the history of how it was made, and normally nobody looks at it. That changes the moment the file reaches someone to whom the history means something: a recruiter, a counterparty, a competitor.

This is not about hidden trackers or anything exotic — these are standard fields of the format, which Windows shows in the file properties in two clicks.

What is inside DOCX, XLSX and PPTX

These formats are archives: they contain XML files, and some describe not the content but the origin of the document. The main fields live in docProps/core.xml and read literally like this:

• dc:creator — the author, meaning the name entered when Office was installed. Often not you, but whoever created the document first.
• cp:lastModifiedBy — who saved the file last.
• dcterms:created and dcterms:modified — creation and modification dates.
• cp:revision — how many times the document has been saved.
• Company in docProps/app.xml — the organisation name from the Office settings.
• TotalTime in the same file — total editing time in minutes.
• docProps/custom.xml — custom properties a corporate template may have added.

What it looks like in practice

A CV built from someone else's template: the Author field still holds the name of the person the template came from. The recruiter opens the file properties, sees a different surname, and the questions start before they reach your first line of experience.

A contract sent to a counterparty: the Company field shows where the document was really drafted, and the total editing time shows that the "individually tailored agreement" was worked on for eleven minutes.

A proposal whose "last modified by" matches the name of another client. Or a spreadsheet whose properties carry a competitor's company name, because the file was inherited from a previous project.

What PDF keeps

PDF has its own set of service fields: Author, Title, Subject, Keywords, Creator (the program the document was made in) and Producer (what turned it into a PDF), plus creation and modification dates. Alongside them usually sits an XMP block holding the same set in another format — and cleaning only half of that is not enough.

When a PDF is exported from Word, the author of the source document normally travels with it. So the docx was cleaned, yet the metadata still left the building — inside its PDF version.

How to clean it, step by step

1. Open the Metadata remover.
2. Drag the document onto the upload area. DOCX, XLSX, PPTX and PDF are supported.
3. Wait for the "Download" link — processing takes a fraction of a second.
4. Download the cleaned copy and send that one.
5. With several documents, upload them together and take them in one archive with "Download all as ZIP".

The content is untouched: text, tables, formulas, images, fonts and layout stay exactly as they were — only the service part of the file changes.

What to do before cleaning

Metadata cleaning removes file properties, not document content. Some things live in the text itself and must be handled in the editor — otherwise they travel to the recipient:

• Tracked changes and comments. Open the Review tab, accept or reject every revision, then delete the comments. A file with unaccepted edits shows what you crossed out and rewrote.
• Hidden rows and columns in Excel, and sheets hidden with a right-click. Invisible, but one command away from being shown.
• Formulas referencing other files: they expose paths like C:\Users\Name\Documents\Clients — your user name and folder structure.
• Speaker notes in PowerPoint — invisible during a presentation, but present in the file.
• A black rectangle drawn over text in a PDF hides nothing: the text underneath remains and can be selected with the mouse. Real removal means editing the document, not painting over it.

How to verify the result

On Windows: right-click the file → Properties → the Details tab. The original lists author, company, dates and editing time; for the cleaned file that list is empty.

You can also skip the properties dialog: a DOCX is a zip archive, so rename it to .zip and open it. In a cleaned document the docProps folder holds empty core.xml and app.xml, and custom.xml is gone.

A good habit is to clean the document as the very last step before sending, after all the edits. Any later save in Word writes the properties again: your user name returns to "last modified by" and the dates are refreshed.