Total Editing Time Missing?

okwalker · #1 09-28-2018, 05:23 AM

dear Friends,

I am trying to find the total amount of time I spent working on about 25 Word documents. For some reason, the Total Editing Time is usually 0 or 1 min, as it seems to be counting from zero when I open the file.

I am in Germany and I read that some privacy laws might prevent the time from being tracked?

In my "track changes" it shows the date, but not the time. Is there a hidden time stamp in track changes that I can find somewhere?

Would there be any other hidden places that the times when document was in use/being edited would be saved?

Many thanks for your help!

o.

Charles Kenyon · #2 09-28-2018, 09:21 AM

You could use VBA to do this, there is nothing that I know stored in the document.
You would save a document variable and change it upon closing the document.
This is beyond the time I have available and may be beyond my expertise, but that is how I would approach it.

The editing time set by Microsoft is pretty meaningless in ordinary use.

The following is a simple macro I use for a basic time stamp in documents. I attach it to a QAT button and in some templates to macrobutton fields.

Code:

Sub DateTimeStamp()
'   Inserts basic date and time stamp as text
'   HansV Eileen's Lounge
'
    Selection.TypeText Format(Now, "dddd, d mmmm YYYY - h:mm AM/PM")
End Sub

macropod · #3 09-28-2018, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by okwalker

I am trying to find the total amount of time I spent working on about 25 Word documents. For some reason, the Total Editing Time is usually 0 or 1 min, as it seems to be counting from zero when I open the file.

As Charles says:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charles Kenyon

The editing time set by Microsoft is pretty meaningless in ordinary use.

Create a new document, type a character and save the document, leave the document open for 24hrs, then type a new character. The total editing time will now be a day or more...
If you then re-save the document via Save As, the total editing time will be reset to 0.

Quote:

Originally Posted by okwalker

In my "track changes" it shows the date, but not the time. Is there a hidden time stamp in track changes that I can find somewhere?

The display of the date & time for tracked changes has been deprecated, resulting in numerous complaints. You could add your voice to those and make a suggestion for a change at http://word.uservoice.com/.

Guessed · #4 09-28-2018, 05:06 PM

Each tracked revision has a Date property which includes the time and can be revealed by vba so you can still examine that property
ActiveDocument.Revisions(1).Date

The Total Editing time property gets reset to 0 if you have enabled the Document Inspector to remove "Document Properties and Personal Information". If you avoid that resetting then the Total Editing Time gives a reliable indication of how long the document has been opened rather than the time it has been actively edited.

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