Privacy supplement for Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

Using Office.com templates

The New tab in the Microsoft Office Backstage view (Click the File tab, and then click New) can provide you with up-to-date assistance downloaded from Office.com for presentations that are based on templates. You can also send feedback on the templates and provide a numeric rating for each template that you download.

When you open a template or a file based on a template, PowerPoint 20102010, depending on your online Help settings, contacts Office.com. It sends the ID for that template, the program and version that you are currently using, together with standard computer information.

The template ID is used to identify the original template as downloaded from Office.com or included in your PowerPoint 2010 installation. It does not uniquely identify your presentation. The ID is the same for all users of the same template.

Linking to pictures and other documents

If you choose to create a link to an image, file, data source, or other document on your hard disk or on a server, the path to that file is saved into your presentation. In some cases, the link might include your user name or information about servers on your network. In the case of a data connection, you can choose to save a user name or password within the data connection link.

Also, when you apply an XML Schema to a presentation, a path to the XML Schema that you have created is saved to the presentation. In some cases, that path might include your user name.

Printing

When you print a PowerPoint 2010 presentation, and then save that presentation, PowerPoint 2010 saves the path to your printer with the presentation. In some cases, the path might include a user name or computer name.

Document Workspace sites

With PowerPoint 2010, you can access a Document Workspace site on a Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 site. A Document Workspace site is a shared space where you can quickly and easily collaborate with other team members on one or multiple presentations.

When you access a Document Workspace site, PowerPoint 2010 downloads data from the Document Workspace site to provide you with information about that site. This data includes:

• Name of the SharePoint Foundation site

• URL or address of the site

• Names, e-mail addresses, and permission levels of the site users

• Lists of the documents, tasks, and other information available from the site

PowerPoint 2010 also stores a list of the SharePoint Foundation sites that you have visited on your computer, in the form of cookies. This list is used to provide you with quick access to the sites that you have visited before. The list of sites that you have visited is not accessed by Microsoft and is not exposed to the Internet unless you choose to make the list more broadly available.

Fax service

The fax service allows you to send a fax over the Internet and organize the faxes that you have sent in Microsoft Outlook 2010. To use the fax service, you must sign up with a fax service provider, separate from Microsoft, who processes the faxes and sends them over the Internet. Microsoft does not collect any data by the fax service.

When you sign up for the fax service, the fax service provider creates a registration package that is stored by the fax service provider and PowerPoint 2010. The package consists of the address of the fax service provider's Web site and a "token" confirming your access to the fax service provider. When you send a fax from an Office program, this registration package is appended to the document.

You can also use the fax service to calculate the price of a fax without actually sending the fax. If you choose to calculate the price of a fax, PowerPoint 2010 uses an encrypted connection to send your registration token, the phone number where the fax is to be sent, and the number of pages of the fax to the fax service provider. Microsoft does not receive or store this information.

Research service

PowerPoint 2010 allows you to request information about a particular term or phrase from a number of premium content providers. When you request a search on a particular word or phrase, PowerPoint 2010 uses the Internet to send the text that you requested, the software product that you are currently using, the locale to which your system is set, and authorization information indicating that you have the right to download research information, if needed by the third party.

PowerPoint 2010 sends this information to a service provided by Microsoft or the third-party provider that you select. This service returns information about the word or phrase that you requested.

Frequently, the information that you receive includes a link to additional information from the service’s Web site. If you click this link, the service’s provider might add a cookie to your system to identify you for future transactions. Microsoft is not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party Web sites and services. Microsoft does not receive or store any of this information unless you have queried a Microsoft-owned service.

You can turn off research and reference by doing the following:

1. Click the File tab.

2. Under Help, click Options.

3. Click Trust Center.

4. Click Trust Center Settings.

5. Click Privacy Options, and then clear the Allow the Research task pane to check for and install new services check box.

Translation service

PowerPoint 2010 allows you to translate all or part of your presentation by using a bilingual dictionary or a machine translation. You have a choice of how you want to translate your presentation.

You can select or enter a word or phrase that you want to translate, or you can choose to translate the entire presentation, in either case by selecting the applicable translation option in the Research and Reference pane. You can also use the Document Tips feature to translate by resting your cursor on the words you want translated. The Document Tips feature is off by default. You can turn it on by clicking the Review tab, and then clicking Mini Translator in the Translate group.

If you select or enter a word or phrase that you want to translate, the phrase that you have entered are compared to a bilingual dictionary. Some bilingual dictionaries are included with your software and others are available from Office.com. If a word or phrase you enter is not in the bilingual dictionary included with your software, the word or phrase is sent unencrypted to a Microsoft or a third-party translation service.

If you want to translate your entire presentation, it is sent unencrypted to a Microsoft or a third-party translation service. As with any information that is sent unencrypted over the Internet, it might be possible for other people to see the word, phrase, or presentation you are translating.

If you choose to use one of the dictionaries available on Office.com or a third-party translation service, PowerPoint 2010 uses the Internet to send the text that you requested, the type of software you have, and the locale and language (Click the File tab. Under Help, click Options. Click Language.) to which your system is set. For third-party translation services, PowerPoint 2010 might also send previously cached authentication information indicating that you previously signed up for access to the Web site.

SharePoint Foundation

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 provides shared, Web-based Workspace sites where you can collaborate on documents or meetings.

When you access a SharePoint site, by using either your Web browser or any Office program, the site saves cookies to your computer if you have permissions to create a new subsite on that site. Taken together, these cookies form a list of sites to which you have permissions. This list is used by several Office programs to provide you with quick access to the sites that you have visited before.

The list of sites that you have visited is not accessed by Microsoft and is not exposed to the Internet unless you choose to make the list more broadly available.

In SharePoint Foundation, when you create a new Web site or list, or add or invite people to an existing Web site or list, the site saves the following for each person, including your:

• Full name

• E-mail address

A user ID is added to every element that you or the other users of the site add to or modify on the site. As with all of the content on the SharePoint site, only administrators and members of the site itself should have access to this information.

All elements of the SharePoint site include two fields: Created By and Modified By. The Created By field is filled in with the user name of the person who originally created the element and the date when it was created. The Modified By field is filled in with the user name of the person who last modified the PowerPoint 2010 presentation and the date when it was last modified.

Administrators of the servers where SharePoint sites are hosted have access to some data from these sites, which is used for analyzing the usage patterns of the site and improving the percentage of time that the site is available. This data is available only to the server administrators and is not shared with Microsoft unless Microsoft is hosting the SharePoint site.

The data specifically captured includes the names, e-mail addresses, and permissions of everyone with access to the site. All users with access to a particular SharePoint site might search and view all content available on that site.

Auditing

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 provides auditing features that allow administrators to keep a reliable audit trail of how users are working with certain content.

When SharePoint Foundation administrators enable the Auditing feature, the server automatically records in the SharePoint content database certain actions performed by the user. These actions include view, edit, check-in, and check-out. For each recorded action, the server records identifying information about the file, the action, and the user's SharePoint ID. No data is sent to Microsoft as part of this feature.

This feature is off by default and is available only to administrators of SharePoint sites where content is stored.

Instant messaging and notifications

PowerPoint 2010 provides you with the ability to send instant messages from within the program itself and provides you with the ability to be alerted when people are online or when certain changes are made to shared presentations or workspaces.

PowerPoint 2010 can use an instant messaging client to provide you with the ability to see the online presence of other people and to send messages to them. PowerPoint 2010 includes a Web control that allows the instant messaging presence to be displayed within a Web page. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 pages and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 pages both make use of this control. Neither of these types of pages transmits presence data back to the Web server

This Web control can be used to transmit presence data from your instant messaging program to the Web server. By default, presence data can only be sent to intranet sites, trusted sites, and sites on the local computer.

New file formats

PowerPoint 2010 uses file formats that are based on XML. These XML file formats are extensible, meaning that users can specify additional schemas or tags in the files. An add-in or other third-party code can also attach additional metadata information to these XML file formats that are not be viewable in PowerPoint 2010.

You can verify the metadata that has been associated with an XML file by viewing it in a text viewer.

Comments

By default, if you save comments to a file, PowerPoint 2010 adds your initials to each comment. This information is then available to anyone who has access to your file.

You can remove your personal information from these comments by clicking the File tab, clicking Info, clicking Check for Issues, and then clicking Inspect Document.

Track Changes

By default, when you make changes to a file with the Track Changes feature turned on, your user name and/or initials are stored in the document and associated with the changes that you make. This information, including both the original and revised text, is then available to anyone who has access to your file.

After these changes are accepted or rejected, your name is removed. You can also remove your personal information from these changes by clicking the File tab, clicking Info, clicking Check for Issues, and then clicking Inspect Document.

Where your name might be stored

In certain instances, PowerPoint 2010 stores your name to provide you with a better experience when using some features. For example, your name is stored in these locations:

• Author fields

• AuthorName file property

You can remove your name from these fields and properties by clicking the File tab, clicking Info, clicking Check for Issues, and then clicking Inspect Document.

Office solutions created by other companies might also include your name or other personal information in the custom properties associated with your file.

If you use the Microsoft Office Web Control, Microsoft Excel Data Access, DataCalc, or other features that allow you to connect directly to another data source, your authorization information (user ID and password) might be saved within your presentation. To change or delete this authorization information, you need to change the properties of the connection appropriately.

Other hidden data and metadata

By default, every file saved by PowerPoint 2010 includes file properties such as the following:

• Author

• Manager

• Company

• Last Saved By

• Names of presentation reviewers

In addition, other properties might be saved to the file, depending on the features or third-party solutions that you use. For example, if your presentation is part of a document workflow, additional file properties to track the workflow are saved. PowerPoint 2010 uses creation IDs that are generated using random numbers, no part of which is derived from your information or your computer’s context. All new slides created in PowerPoint 2010 are assigned a different random number for the slide creation ID and that are written to the file. Further, if you use a presentation in a co-authoring environment such as Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, the slide creation IDs are used to determine which co-authors’ edits are the most recent.

This information is then available to anyone who has access to your file.

You can remove these properties by clicking the File tab, clicking Info, clicking Check for Issues, and then clicking Inspect Document.

The Inspect Document feature can also be used to remove some other types of data that might not be available in all views, such as comments and revisions. We recommend that you run Inspect Document on any presentation that you plan to make publicly available.

Hidden data and metadata can also be included in Microsoft Office files by using the Microsoft Office Object Model. For example, you can make pictures invisible in the Microsoft Office Object Model, which means that they cannot be seen when you open the file, but the picture is stored in the file and can later be made visible.

Hidden shapes

PowerPoint 2010 allows you to hide shapes or text objects in your presentations or templates by using the Selection task pane. To show the Selection and Visibility task pane, select a shape, and then click Selection Panein the Arrange group on the Format tab. The hidden shapes or text objects can contain personal information added by the author of the presentation. The hidden text objects or shapes can be saved with a theme or template file and are not visible during a slide show. If the template file is used to create a new presentation, all hidden shapes or hidden text objects are copied to the new presentation. You can view which shapes are hidden and choose not to hide them on the Selection and Visibility task pane.

Alternative text

PowerPoint 2010 allows you to add and edit alternative text for tables, shapes, pictures, charts, SmartArt graphics, and other objects in your presentation by using the Format dialog box. The alternative text is saved with the presentation and might contain personal information added by any contributor of the presentation. For some objects, such as pictures you insert into your presentation, the default alternative text includes the file path for the object you insert.

Alternative text can be used by accessibility features such as screen readers. The alternative text is available to anyone who has access to your file.

Broadcast Slide Show

PowerPoint 2010 allows you to broadcast a slide show to viewers who watch in a Web browser.

When you broadcast a slide show, PowerPoint 2010 sends a copy of your full presentation to the server you choose along with information about the account you use to connect to the server. PowerPoint 2010 provides you a URL through which other users can view the slide show. Although the broadcast feature only shows the slide show you present, it is possible for anyone with access to the URL to access your full presentation content, including hidden slides.

When you broadcast a slide show, PowerPoint 2010 stores the server you use, including information such as its name, its URLs or other addresses, and its description. This information is used to allow you to access the servers you have used more easily in the future.

Themes

PowerPoint 2010 allows you to create a theme from an existing presentation by clicking the File tab, clicking Save As. In the Save As dialog box, in the Save as type list, click Office Theme. When you create a theme, some elements, such as text, images, or hidden shapes, are copied from your original presentation's slide master to the theme. These objects are used as design elements when you apply the theme to a new presentation and are visible to other people. If you are publishing your theme for use by other people, you might not want to store personal or confidential information in your original presentation. You can delete personal or confidential information from an existing theme by editing the theme's slide master and resaving the theme with the same name to replace the original.

Recording macros

Macro recording allows you to record a sequence of actions so that you can reproduce the actions at a later time. If you choose to record a macro, your user name is saved as a comment in the code when the macro is initially created. You can manually remove your user name from this location.

Digital signatures

A digital signature is an optional feature that can help you to authenticate the identity of the person who sent you a presentation. A digital signature is a unique encrypted value of the data in the presentation that you are signing. When you send a presentation with a digital signature, the signature is sent to the recipient, along with the data in the presentation and a trusted digital certificate from you (the sender). The digital certificate is issued by a Certification Authority, such as VeriSign, and contains information to authenticate the sender and verify that the original contents of the presentation have not been altered. PowerPoint might automatically contact the certification authority online to verify the digital signature.

When you sign a presentation, you see a dialog box that shows the information that is included in the digital signature, such as your system date and time, operating system version number, Microsoft Office version number, and PowerPoint version number.

Information Rights Management

Information Rights Management (IRM) allows you to give certain users or groups the right to access and modify a presentation. Despite some similarities, IRM is not the same as Document Protection. IRM allows you to set permissions to the entire presentation for specific actions, such as printing the presentation or forwarding the presentation to other people, as well as for reading or editing the presentation.

When you store a presentation with IRM enabled, PowerPoint 2010 saves to the presentation a list of every user who has rights to that presentation and what their permissions are. This information is encrypted so that only the presentation owners can access this information.

Additionally, presentations with IRM enabled contain content licenses. A content license contains an e-mail address, permission, and authentication information. Each time anyone attempts to open a presentation with IRM enabled, PowerPoint 2010 checks the content licenses saved in the presentation against the user's identity. If the user has never opened the presentation before, PowerPoint 2010 contacts an IRM server, verifies the user's identity, downloads a new content license for the user (provided that the user has the necessary rights), and saves that content license to the presentation.

Presentation owners have the option to avoid saving content licenses to the presentation. However, if this content license is not saved to the presentation, PowerPoint 2010 must contact the IRM server every time the presentation is opened. If PowerPoint 2010 is not connected to a network or cannot contact the IRM server, the presentation cannot be opened.

Office file validation failures

When you open certain earlier versions of PowerPoint files in Microsoft Office, Office file validation checks whether the file structure matches specification from Microsoft for that file format. If the file fails this validation, Microsoft Office opens it in a Protected View.

A copy of the problematic file that fails Office file validation is saved on your computer after you exit PowerPoint. Microsoft Error Reporting periodically asks you whether you agree to send a copy of these files to Microsoft. For more information about Microsoft Error Reporting, including a full privacy statement, see Microsoft Error Reporting Privacy Statement.

Office Auto Revisions

PowerPoint 2010 automatically saves copies of your presentation while you edit them. This helps you recover presentations if you accidently close a presentation without saving your changes. You can choose not to automatically save copies of the presentation by doing the following:

1. Click the File tab.

2. Under Help, click Options.

3. Click Save.

4. Under Save presentation, clear the Keep the last Auto Recovered file if I close without saving check box.

You can access and delete the last saved versions of previously saved presentations by clicking the File tab, clicking Info, and then clicking the presentation that you want under Versions. You access and delete the last automatically saved versions for newly created presentations by clicking the File tab, clicking Info, clicking Manage Versions, and then clicking Recover Unsaved Presentations. PowerPoint 2010 periodically deletes the automatically saved presentation if you do not open and use them. For more information, see Recover your Office files.

Trimmed media

PowerPoint 2010 allows you to trim audio and video media by using the Trim Audio and Trim Video dialog boxes so that only a certain timed portion of the media is shown in slide shows. Trimming only hides the trimmed-out portions of audio and video media; it does not permanently delete the trimmed-out portions. If you save a file that has trimmed media, the trimmed-out portions are saved in the file. The trimmed regions from all media formats can be removed by doing one of the following:

Cropped videos

PowerPoint 2010 allows you to crop videos by using the Crop feature on the ribbon or Crop button in the Format Object dialog box so that only a certain area of the video is shown in slide show. Cropping only hides the cropped-out portions of videos; it does not permanently delete the cropped-out portions. If you save a file that has cropped videos, the cropped-out portions are saved in the file. The cropped regions cannot be removed from the file except by completely removing the media from the PowerPoint presentation.

Top of Page