Privacy and Document Creation

Hello,

I was recently directed to information re: trackable information being included in Microsoft Word documents (GUID, etc). I was already aware that PDF files contain information that can be traced back to the creator.

So my question - which text editors allow you to create a document that doesn't contain trackable, personally identifying information?

Note - I'm not asking for illegal/DMCA reasons. I'm in a field where I'd have completely legitimate reasons for needing to ensure documents created by myself or others weren't "fingerprinted."

Apologies if this is common knowledge to everyone but me - I did spend some time searching and was unable to arrive at a clear answer. Anyone that supplies the answer gets both my gratitude and an imaginary sugar cookie.

 

You can still use Word just remove meta data
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA010776461033.aspx
equally do the same in whatever you use to create a pdf

 

There's software available to get rid of metadata in Word documents, PDF documents and image files.

Word docs, try Javacool's DocScrubber http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/docscrubber.html or Microsoft's own tool here.

For images, you can use JPEG & PNG Stripper: http://www.steelbytes.com/?mid=30&cmd=download&pid=15

Create PDFs with software that doesn't create metadata. If you need to eliminate metadata in PDFs in one fell swoop, try using the 14-day trial of Workshare Protect: http://www.workshare.com/products/wsprotect/

 

Never underestimate the power of raw text (aka: Notepad, vim, et. al.) or some creative HTML Markup (above editors, or HTML editing software.) Both files can be opened with a text editor and you can look yourself for identifying marks.

With raw text, you can even go in and change the LF/CRLF entries to make it look like it came from another OS.

 

Thanks to all who posted answers, helpful. Enjoy those imaginary sugar cookies.

I think I will go with the notepad solution. Raw text is raw text, it doesn't have to look pretty.