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My identity in Word options (Personalize your copy of MS Office) is set to my initials, and this is what is usually shown when I use Track changes in Word. But since I got MS Office 2016, most documents show my initials but some ignore my personalized identity and just show "Author" on all my comments and changes. How do I get my initials back in all Word documents?
A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
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Answer accepted by question author
I believe I found the answer here: https://www.razumny.no/2017/05/word-track-changes-shows-up-as-author-instead-of-author-name/
It is a document setting.
Answer accepted by question author
Yes, that is a setting that you can't set in the Privacy Options, only clear it. It has to be set using the Document Inspector. As I said, it's a per-document setting, so it can affect some documents and not others. Once a document has been "scrubbed," clearing that setting won't restore the deleted information, but it will prevent the document from being scrubbed again.
Answer accepted by question author
This indicates that someone has used the Document Inspector and removed "personal information." This is a per-document setting and can be reversed by clearing the check box for "Remove personal information from file properties on save" at File | Options | Trust Center | Trust Center Settings | Privacy Options. If you use the Document Inspector in future (File | Info | Inspect Document), make sure that "Document Properties and Personal Information" (and of course also "Comments, Revisions, Versions, and Annotations") is not included.
I rarely get .doc files, so compatibility mode isn't the problem. But in Word 2016, every .docx file arrives in "Protected" mode and I have to click "Enable editing". After that, my tracked changes correctly show my initials, except in certain documents.
In answer to your other post, yes, the first link https://www.razumny.no/2017/05/word-track-changes-shows-up-as-author-instead-of-author-name/ includes clear step-by-step instructions on how to fix this 'Remove personal information' setting.
My only problem is that it doesn't apply retroactively, so my current document still shows all my existing tracked changes and comments from yesterday as "Author", but new changes and comments today get my initials instead.
I believe there is a setting to remove confidential information, but I was not aware that it was for individual documents?
Are some of the documents (the ones that retain your initials) in "compatibility mode" and the ones that show Author not in that mode?