Teachers and schools: the student information a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file can carry to parents
Last updated: 25 October 2026
Short answer: school files are reused from year to year and from class to class, so a letter, a report or a workbook sent to parents can still hold last year's class list on a hidden sheet, comments about a student's work, another class's names in tracked changes or in the file it was copied from, a gradebook embedded behind a table, and the names of the staff who wrote it. Before a file leaves the school, make a copy that holds only what that parent or partner should see, clean it, and check the copy you send.
This page is for teachers and school staff who send Word, Excel or PowerPoint files outside the school: to parents and carers, to another school, to a sports club or a trip provider, or to a governor or trustee. It is about students' information. Staff recruitment files are in hidden data for HR and recruiting. The examples here are typical cases, not reports of real ones.
Where students' information hides
| What | Where it is | How it gets there |
|---|---|---|
| Last year's class list | A hidden sheet, hidden rows or columns, or filtered rows in a workbook | This year's workbook was made from last year's, and the old names were hidden rather than deleted |
| Comments on a student's work | Comments, including resolved ones; tracked changes | A colleague reviewed the report or the marks, and the notes were never deleted |
| Another class's names | Deleted text in tracked changes, hidden text, speaker notes, hidden slides | A letter or a presentation for one class was copied and edited for the next with Track Changes on |
| The whole gradebook | An Excel object embedded in a Word letter or a slide | A table was pasted from the marks workbook as an embedded object rather than as plain text |
| Staff names | Author and Last Modified By; the names on comments and tracked changes | Office fills them in from each person's user name |
Last year's class list in this year's workbook
A trip list, a reading-group sheet or a marks workbook is often last year's file with the names changed. If last year's names were hidden instead of deleted, they are still in the file. Microsoft's page Hide or Unhide worksheets says: "The data in hidden worksheets is not visible, but it can still be referenced from other worksheets and workbooks, and you can easily unhide hidden worksheets as needed." Its Document Inspector page says the same of rows and columns: "If you distribute a copy of a workbook that has hidden rows, columns, or worksheets, other people might unhide them to view the data that they contain."
Filtering a list down to one group does not remove the other rows either; they are hidden, and anyone can clear the filter. The same page lists, among what can hold hidden data, "active Autofilters or table filters that might cause cached or hidden data to be saved with the workbook", and pivot tables keep "cached data" of their own (see pivot caches keep deleted source data).
So when a parent, a club or another school needs part of a list, do not send the class workbook with the rest hidden. Make a new workbook, copy into it only the rows and columns they need, and paste them as values (Paste Special › Values), so that no formula still reads the class sheet. Rows and columns hidden by hand inside the range you copy can come along with it, so unhide everything in the class sheet first, or unhide all in the new workbook afterwards and check that no row or column you did not mean to send came along. Sheets hidden with code do not appear in Excel's Unhide list; Microsoft's page says "Worksheets hidden by VBA code have the property xlSheetVeryHidden; the Unhide command will not display those hidden sheets." More in hidden sheets, defined names and personal information in Excel and personal data inside an Excel sheet.
Comments and tracked changes on reports
A report or a letter about one student is often reviewed by a colleague before it goes home. Their notes ("is this too harsh?", "mention the attendance meeting") are comments, and they go with the file until someone deletes them. Microsoft's page Using modern comments in Word says that in the default view "resolved comments are hidden", while the list view "includes all active and resolved comments": resolving a comment does not remove it.
Wording changed with Track Changes on stays in the file too. Microsoft's page Accept or reject tracked changes in Word says: "To remove tracked changes, you must accept or reject them. Choosing the No Markup view only temporarily hides changes. They will be visible again the next time someone opens the document." Both carry names. Microsoft's page Change the author name says the User name setting "also provides the name and initials that are displayed in comments and tracked changes". How to take them out is in removing comments, ink and annotations; what accepting every change still leaves is in tracked changes after Accept All.
Another class in the template
A letter for one class is often last week's letter for another class with the names typed over. If Track Changes was on, the other class's names are still in the file as deleted text, as above. Text formatted as hidden is another place: Document Inspector in Word lists "Text that is formatted as hidden (a font effect that is available in the Font dialog box)", and notes that it "cannot detect text that was hidden by other methods (for example, white text on a white background)".
A presentation for a parents' evening built from another class's deck can keep that class in the speaker notes, which the audience does not see on the screen but anyone with the file can read, and on hidden slides; see speaker notes and hidden slides. A deck made from a template keeps its layouts and master slides as well (slide masters, layouts and the template name).
The old file's properties come along too. The Title, Subject and Comments typed into the original stay until someone changes them, and so does its Author. Microsoft's author-name page says: "Every time you create a new document, Word sets the Author property based on the User name setting". A copy saved from a colleague's file is not a new document, so it keeps their name as Author. Look at File › Info before you send it.
A gradebook embedded behind a table
A table pasted into a letter or a slide from the marks workbook can be a picture, plain text, a link to the workbook, or an embedded copy of it. Microsoft's page Insert an object in your Excel spreadsheet explains that information copied between programs that support OLE, "such as Word", can be either a linked or an embedded object. Writing about a workbook, it says: "The version of the source is embedded entirely in the workbook", and that someone who opens the file "can view the embedded object without having access to the original data". The page describes Excel as the destination; we read it as the same for a workbook embedded in a Word letter or a slide, so assume that a table showing one group's marks can carry the whole workbook it came from, with every class in it, and double-click the table to see.
Microsoft's Document Inspector page does not list embedded objects among what it inspects in a Word document; for Excel and PowerPoint it lists them among the items it "finds but can't remove". If you only need the figures, paste them as text, or as a picture of the range you mean to show. Embedded objects in Word are covered in custom XML and embedded objects; charts and workbooks in slides in PowerPoint charts and embedded Excel.
Does sending a PDF fix it?
Partly. Exported with the right options, a PDF leaves out the tracked changes and most of the properties (check the PDF for comments too); but any name you can see on the page, in a table or in a header or footer goes into the PDF as it is. In its Word steps, Microsoft's page Save or convert to PDF or XPS in Office desktop apps says: "To include tracked changes in the PDF, under Publish what, select Document showing markup. Otherwise, make sure Document is selected", and "If you want to include document properties in the PDF, make sure Document properties is selected." For Excel and PowerPoint, the same page has you select Options "to choose whether markup should be printed, and to select output options". Check that markup is not published and that no properties are included before you export, and open the PDF's properties afterwards. Which to send, and what each one carries, is in .docx or PDF and metadata when exporting to PDF. Where the parent has to fill the file in, send the Office file and clean it first.
Before you send
- Make the copy for this recipient: only the rows, pages or slides about their child or their group. Keep the class file in school.
- In a workbook copy, delete the rows, columns and sheets they should not see, rather than hiding or filtering them, and check that the figures they need are still right.
- In Word, accept or reject every tracked change and turn Track Changes off. Delete every comment, resolved ones included.
- In PowerPoint, read the speaker notes, and delete the hidden slides you do not mean to send.
- Replace embedded tables with text or a picture, unless the recipient needs the workbook.
- Go to File › Info › Properties › Advanced Properties, and clear or correct Title, Subject, Author, Company and Comments, and the Custom tab.
- On Windows, Document Inspector (File › Info › Check for Issues › Inspect Document) finds and removes several of these in one pass. Microsoft recommends using it on a copy, "because it is not always possible to restore the data that the Document Inspector removes." On a Mac, see Document Inspector on a Mac.
- Search the copy for the names of students in other classes or other year groups, and read the headers and footers.
How to check the copy yourself
- Open the copy and look at File › Info: Author, Last Modified By and, under Show All Properties, Title, Company and Comments.
- For a closer look, make another copy, rename it to .zip and unzip it:
docProps/core.xmlholds the author and the last person to save it, anddocProps/custom.xmlany custom properties.- In a workbook,
xl/workbook.xmllists every sheet;state="hidden"orstate="veryHidden"on one means it is still there. - A folder named
embeddingsunderword/,ppt/orxl/holds embedded files, often whole workbooks. - In a Word file, a
w:commentelement inword/comments.xmlmeans comments remain, and<w:delin anyword/*.xmlpart, headers, footers and notes included, marks deleted text that is still there. - In a presentation,
ppt/notesSlides/holds the speaker notes, andshow="0"in a slide part marks a hidden slide.
- Search every part for a few names from other classes.
What ScrubDrop does
ScrubDrop reads a .docx, .xlsx or .pptx in your browser; the file is not uploaded. It lists what it finds: the properties, the comments with their authors, the tracked changes with who made them, hidden sheets, rows, columns and slides, speaker notes, embedded objects, pivot tables and their caches, hidden text, and the other kinds it supports. For free, one file at a time, it removes the properties, removes the comments and accepts the tracked changes, so text deleted with Track Changes on, such as another class's names, is gone and text inserted is kept.
ScrubDrop Pro also removes the structural kinds, such as hidden sheets, rows, columns, slides and text, speaker notes, embedded objects, and pivot tables with their caches, and cleans several files at once and gives them back as a ZIP. Removing a pivot table takes out the pivot table's and its cache's parts and leaves on the sheet the values the table was showing; a workbook with a pivot chart, a slicer, a timeline or a GETPIVOTDATA formula that reads the pivot table is refused, with the reason. In a Word letter or a slide, an embedded object leaves the picture that was showing. When you choose to remove hidden text, a file that hides text through a style is not guessed at: it is refused with a message saying so. A sheet that has hidden rows or columns and also a filter with criteria or an Excel table is refused too, because the filter's criteria or the table can keep what is in them. Clearing the filter shows those rows again rather than removing them, so delete the rows the recipient should not see in Excel first. When it removes hidden sheets, rows or columns, defined names or links to other files, every formula on the sheets that stay, not only those that used them, is replaced by its last calculated value, so the figures look the same but no longer calculate; for a workbook that must keep calculating, delete the rows in Excel as described above. White or tiny text and cells outside the print area are listed but not removed, in either version, because only you can tell whether they matter. ScrubDrop does not decide which students a recipient may see: making the copy with only their rows is still your step. It reads the cleaned file again with separate parsers before it offers it. It does not read PDFs.
Questions
Can a parent see last year's class list if I only hid those rows?
Yes. Hidden and filtered rows are still in the workbook, and anyone who opens it can unhide them or clear the filter. Copy only the rows they need into a new workbook, as values, and send that.
Does resolving a comment on a student's report remove it?
No. Microsoft's page says resolved comments are hidden in the default view and still listed in the Comments pane. Delete the comments before the report leaves the school.
Is a PDF of the report enough?
Often, if you export it without markup and without document properties, though names visible on the page go into the PDF too. In its Word steps, Microsoft's page says tracked changes go into the PDF with Document showing markup, and properties if Document properties is selected. Check both, and open the PDF's properties afterwards.
Sources: the Microsoft pages linked on this page were checked on 25 October 2026. ScrubDrop is not affiliated with Microsoft.
Check a school file before it goes home, in your browser. Free: one file at a time; every supported kind of hidden data it finds is listed, and properties, comments and tracked changes are removed. Check a file.