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Hide parts of a document so that other people cannot see them

Anonymous
2021-12-03T09:29:17+00:00

I have many word documents I want to share so that other people can help me with the things written down there. I do not want to create 2 versions for nearly 100 of documents... is there any way you can think of?

I don't want all people to be able to read my thoughts on certain things.

I guess this feature would not help ... https://www.howtogeek.com/363893/how-and-why-to-use-hidden-text-in-a-word-document/

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  1. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 322.9K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2021-12-09T09:20:32+00:00

    Hiding Text will only work IF YOU SAVE THE DOCUMENT IN PDF FORMAT AND SEND THAT.

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  2. Charles Kenyon 166.7K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2021-12-03T16:43:39+00:00

    Hi BazingaRX

     

    I go through the post carefully, May I know why you don’t want to use Hidden text feature in Word?(Shortcut: Select the text and press CTRL+SHIFT+H). If you would like to protect your document and only allow users to fill in specific part in the document, I think you may using some forms control in your document, after hide text and protected your document with password, other user may only edit in specific parts of your documents and may not see the hidden text. On how to create forms in word: Create forms that users complete or print in Word (microsoft.com)

     

    ***

     

    Best Regards,

    Clark

    Clark,

    This is mistaken.

    Hidden text can be viewed easily with any kind of editing restriction applied.

    I tried "Filling in Forms," "No Changes," and Group Control. Clicking on Show/Hide non-printing marks shows the hidden text.

    Even if it could not be seen that way, the text is still present in the XML.

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  3. Charles Kenyon 166.7K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2021-12-03T16:37:02+00:00

    You CANNOT "hide" parts of a document so that others cannot see them. You can mark text as hidden, which means that unless someone has display of hidden text turned on (as I normally do), they will not see it.

    Is this a document you are sending for editing or work to someone else and then they are sending it back to you?

    Or, is this something that you want to send the partial document to them for their use?

    Will sending as pdf work?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2021-12-03T13:53:39+00:00

    Hi BazingaRX

    I go through the post carefully, May I know why you don’t want to use Hidden text feature in Word?(Shortcut: Select the text and press CTRL+SHIFT+H). If you would like to protect your document and only allow users to fill in specific part in the document, I think you may using some forms control in your document, after hide text and protected your document with password, other user may only edit in specific parts of your documents and may not see the hidden text(Note: although users can view only other contents in the document, they can always see the hidden text by clicking show non-printing marks under Home>Paragraph). On how to create forms in word: Create forms that users complete or print in Word (microsoft.com)

    Additionally, I think you may also try spilt your documents into different sections, and copy these sections to different document and share them with users/groups. In that case, users may not see contents you don’t want them to see.

    Best Regards,

    Clark

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  5. Anonymous
    2021-12-04T07:22:07+00:00

    Hi Charles Kenyon,

    Thanks for the reminder, and yes, I made a mistake and it is true that we can see the hidden text if we select “Show/Hide non-printing marks”. And have edit my previous reply with Bold note on this.

    Best Regards,

    Clark

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