Hi folks, I work for a firm which creates bundles of documents in MS Word - these are then sent to customers along with guidance that tells them how to alter certain fields. For instance, most documents come with an [Organisation Name] field - and we tell the customer how to reword this with the name of their organisation.



When we save the document, there are only the fields we've created there. No others at all.

But, often, when we return to it, days, weeks or months later, we notice that quite a few random "phantom" fields have appeared. I've attached an example. Only the [Organisation Name] field has been added by us - the rest are the phantoms!

So, can anyone tell me: why do they appear, and how can we stop them appearing?

We use OneDrive and SharePoint - not sure if either of those is to blame. Thanks in advance.

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These are not fields but custom document properties.
Any user can add them. Some software adds them. Some Add-Ins add them.

Why is this a concern?

Hi Charles,

Many thanks for the reply. My boss is a little concerned because sometimes we might have half a dozen of our real fields in there - and then there's loads of the junk ones, so it looks a little messy and might confuse the customer as to what they are and whether or not they're needed.

Why do they end up in there, and how can we stop them?

As I said earlier: You can make the document read-only. These are not things most users see.

If you want, I can write a macro to delete ALL custom document properties.

What are you using them to do?
Again, these are not fields; they can be displayed in fields.

Thanks Charles.

OK, when I say fields, I mean they're the things we create as fields, such as [Organisation Name]. All the rest just arrive in the same place, so we just assumed they were more fields.

Read-only wouldn't work, sadly, as the documents need to be edited by the customer. Basically, what we do is create a load of documents for organisations wanting to apply for certification to various ISO standards. For instance, an environmental company applying for ISO14001. Each document relates to a different part of the standard - policies, procedures, processes mainly. So the customer needs to edit them to add all their own details before submitting them when they apply for certification to the standard.

If you could create a macro, we'd be so grateful, thank you!

PS Can you please explain why they appear in the first place - and whether there's anything we can do prevent them appearing?

As I said earlier: They can be added manually by accessing the dialog you initially displayed.
They can be added using macros.

SharePoint is one of the programs that create document properties here and can also place them in the Quick Parts > Document Properties
XML location of Document Properties in Quick Parts list - Expand / Modify

Other than make the documents Read-Only, there is nothing you can do to prevent others from adding them.
You can ask them to not add them. You can remove them when the documents come back to you. Unless your correspondents are very technically inclined, these are not something that is going to bother them. Again, most users never see Document Properties.

Thanks again, Charles. So, if you did write the macro, could they reappear after being deleted with it, or would they stay deleted?

They could be inserted again. If deleted, they are gone unless someone or some program creates them again. It is not like hidden text.

The following can probably answer your questions better than can I: How document properties and DocProperty fields work by Lene Fredborg, Word MVP.

I can confirm that Sharepoint will be adding at least one of these Custom Document Properties - ContentTypeID will get added when you load the file into Sharepoint. If you have custom document types in Sharepoint it is likely that other fields will be added. In our organisation we also use a third-party application to 'classify' documents and this adds six Custom DocProps by itself.

If I were you I would be using Linked Content Controls to simplify the customer's interactions with document metadata. Custom document properties are far more labour intensive to use and is not going to work well long term due to the ongoing education required for your users.

__________________
Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

Linked Content Controls = Mapped Content Controls?
Content Controls linked to Document Properties in some way like the ones under Quick Parts?

Yes Charles
Linked CCs and Mapped CCs are the same thing and I should get out of the habit of calling them 'Linked' rather than 'Mapped'. Whatever you want to call them, they have benefits and drawbacks when compared with Custom DocProps + fields.
Benefits: Can update metadata directly on the page, Updates on the page instantly, Can be easily locked/protected on the page.
Drawbacks: Doesn't work with doc format, May not work on Mac versions of Word

__________________
Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

All of the Mac MVPs say that they do work on the Mac versions, just very difficult to create or change them on the Mac. Content Controls for macOS - Cool Code - Brandwares

Thanks so much, gentlemen. I shall run all this by my boss and see what he thinks.

All the best,

Andie