How to remove w:rsidRPr tags from Word document?

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How to remove w:rsidRPr tags from Word document?

Hans 20

When editing a Word document, Word saves w:rsidRPr tags to track revisions. These tags lead to fragmentation of the document and bloat the file.

You can see these tags when unzipping the .docx file and opening document.xml.

We don't work with revisions in our company, and therefore I want to remove these tags and "defragment" the document.

There used to be a setting 'Store random numbers to improve combine accuracy' in Options | Trust center. Unchecking this setting prevented further fragmenting. But this setting has disappeared.

So how can I remove the tags from the document? I would prefer to use VBA. But any other method is welcome.

Viorel 126.9K Reputation points

2025-11-01T19:16:39.08+00:00

At the same time, it seems that many users tend to overlook this tag and remain unaware of its presence.

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Viorel 126.9K Reputation points

2025-11-01T19:16:39.08+00:00

At the same time, it seems that many users tend to overlook this tag and remain unaware of its presence.

Answer 1

John Korchok 231.8K Volunteer Moderator

XML tags add only a tiny amount to the file size of a document. And manually removing tags is error-prone and can easily render your file unreadable.

You can edit OOXML using C# in Visual Studio using the Open XML SDK. It's not a beginner project.

I've written a VBA add-in that allows you to edit PowerPoint XML in VBA, feel free to download it and modify to work with Word. Edit OOXML with VBA – Cool Code Also not a beginner project.

Erik 36 Reputation points

2026-04-18T16:12:54.7566667+00:00

It turns out that this is not the case.

I copy files from week to week, and have done so for a number of years.

After some 7 years of generating new files from the old, settings.xml is now 70K.

My use case is not unusual.

Now, could I create a template and go from that week to week? Certainly. But I don't want to maintain a template and then edit. I want to just work with a format that is mostly the same, but changes a bit each week. Hence my workflow.

This actually is a real problem. And what's worse, I have zero use at all for this chain of session id's. Completely useless to me, and eating up disk space like nobody's business.
John Korchok 231.8K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2026-04-18T23:06:42.3433333+00:00

70K was a lot in 1980, but not today. A new blank Word file is about 26K.

Using a template is the best practice, but if you reuse the same document, be sure to use File>Save As and change the name. Then, if your file gets corrupted, you're not stuck.
Charles Kenyon 166.9K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2026-04-19T01:03:50.0633333+00:00

could I create a template and go from that week to week? Certainly. But I don't want to maintain a template and then edit. I want to just work with a format that is mostly the same, but changes a bit each week.

Where you want the same formatting and document setup with different content, a template is the best solution. https://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/templates.htm

When you save as a template, you can use File > New and choose Custom to find the template. Once you use it once this way, pin the template.
Erik 36 Reputation points

2026-04-19T01:48:03.21+00:00

First, I should note that I had a career writing software, and when I see a 67KB list of completely useless GUIDs that have no actual change log associated with them, stored internally to the document and not in an external source control database, I am seeing a bug being called a feature. If there were a way provided to strip this nonsense out, I'd have no issue. But given that aside from a manual edit of the xml, there does not seem to be such.

Secondly, it would seem that you did not stop to consider my use case, and the reason that I noted that maintaining an external template is problematic. My workflow is that I copy several documents week to week, and change them to my current needs as I am doing my writing. I am doing creative work, and if I wind up making a format change, odds are that I'll want it next week. What I don't want to be doing is explicitly thinking about template maintenance while I'm being creative. Hence my copying from week to week.

Answer 2

Hans 20

Hi John

Thank you very much for your prompt reply. So it seems that Word has no built-in method nor VBA method.

I consider editing the XML directly. I'm aware that this is not easy. I'll use your examples to get into it.

Best regards

Hans

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How to remove w:rsidRPr tags from Word document?

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