Configure privacy options in Office for Mac 2011
Office for Mac 2011 will reach end of support on October 10, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see these resources.
Applies to: Office for Mac 2011
Topic Last Modified: 2015-03-09
Preference settings can help you mitigate privacy threats and control the disclosure of personal information. For example, document metadata may contain the author's name and contact information. To help ensure a high level of privacy, we recommend that users edit or remove any author and contact information that is associated with documents.
Important
There are no administrative settings that allow you to enforce security preferences that you specify. Even if you set and deploy security preferences, users can change these preferences at a later time. Therefore, if you are deploying security settings as part of your organization's policy, you must educate your users about the risks associated with changing default settings.
Recommended privacy options
| Privacy option | Description |
|---|---|
Customer Experience Improvement Program |
If you choose to participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP), which is a recommended best practice, Microsoft collects anonymous feedback, including application usage patterns and the hardware configuration of the user's system. By default, users are not enrolled in CEIP and they are not required to participate in the program. Note Microsoft does not collect your name, address, or any other personally identifiable information when you participate in CEIP. |
Document metadata that contains user information |
If users share copies of an Excel workbook or a Word document, they should review any personal and hidden information and decide whether it is appropriate to include. Users can configure personal information removal in the Office for Mac 2011 Preference settings. Note Removing personal information affects the following areas:
|
Maximize protection for private and personal information in Office 2011
By default, users are not enrolled in the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). When users run the Office Setup Assistant, the default selection on the CEIP page is No, I don't want to participate at this time. They can choose to leave the option selected. Users can also specify the preference settings for CEIP from any one of the Office 2011 applications.
Configure preference settings for CEIP
Open Word 2011, Excel 2011, PowerPoint 2011, or Outlook for Mac 2011.
On the Word, Excel, Powerpoint, or Outlook menu, click Preferences.
Do one of the following:
To Do this Word
Under Personal Settings, click Feedback.
Excel
Under Sharing and Privacy, click Feedback.
PowerPoint
Click Feedback.
Outlook
Under Other, click Feedback.
Click No, I don't want to participate at this time.
Maximize protection for private and personal information in Word 2011
Users can edit or remove any of the author and contact information that is associated with Office documents to help maintain the level of privacy that they want. The author and contact information that users specify appears automatically in all their Office documents, including those that they share with others, unless they remove their personal information from a document.
In Word 2011, users can also set options to receive warnings before printing, saving, or sending a file with tracked changes or comments.
Set privacy options in Word 2011
On the Word menu, click Preferences.
Under Personal Settings, click Security.
Under Privacy options, do any of the following:
To Do this Avoid unintentionally distributing information about the document author or the names associated with comments or tracked changes
Select the Remove personal information from this file on save check box.
Receive warnings before printing, saving, or sending a file that contains tracked changes or comments
Select the Warn before printing, saving, or sending a file that contains tracked changes or comments check box.
Maximize protection for private and personal information in Excel 2011
Users can edit or remove any of the author and contact information that is associated with Office documents to help maintain the level of privacy that they want. The author and contact information that users specify appears automatically in all their Office documents, including those that they share with others, unless they remove their personal information from a document.
Set privacy options in Excel 2011
On the Excel menu, click Preferences.
Under Sharing and Privacy, click Security.
Under Privacy options, select the Remove personal information from this file on save check box.
Maximize protection for private and personal information in PowerPoint 2011
Users can edit or remove any of the author and contact information that is associated with Office documents to help maintain the level of privacy that they want. The author and contact information that users specify appears automatically in all their Office documents, including those that they share with others, unless they remove their personal information from a document.
Set privacy options in PowerPoint 2011
On the PowerPoint menu, click Preferences.
Click Advanced, and then under User information, clear the Name field.
You should also clear the user information from the document properties. On the File menu, click Properties, and then click the Summary tab.
Clear the fields that contain information you do not want to share.