WD98: Opening Word Document in Text Editor Displays Deleted Text

If you open a Word 98 Macintosh Edition document in a text editor, the file may contain text that was previously deleted.

This behavior is by design in Microsoft Word when you save a document with the Allow Fast Saves option selected. When Allow Fast Saves is enabled, Word records only the changes to the document and appends them to the end of the file. This means that your document still contains the deleted text, even though it does not appear on the screen. Word removes deleted text from your document only when you perform a full save. (To display the Allow Fast Saves option, click Preferences on the Tools menu and click the Save tab.)

If you do not want a document to contain deleted text, use either of the following methods.

Method 1: Disable Allow Fast Saves

To prevent a document from containing deleted text that someone could view with a text editor, disable the Allow Fast Saves option and perform a full save. To do this, follow these steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click Preferences.
2. Click to clear the Allow Fast Saves check box.
3. Save your document.

When you do this, Word incorporates all the changes into the document and removes deleted text.

Method 2: Copy and Paste into a New Document

This method allows you to continue to use the Fast Save feature. To use this method, follow these steps:

1. When all final revisions are completed, select the entire document and click Copy on the Edit menu.
2. Start a new document and click Paste on the Edit menu to copy the original document into a new document.

The new document will be free of appended changes.

Word always performs a full save when the Allow Fast Saves option is disabled. In addition, even with the Allow Fast Saves option enabled, Word periodically performs a full save of your document.

The Allow Fast Saves option provides greater operating speed while working in Word. It requires less time to append changes (fast save) than to incorporate them in your document (full save).

For more information about Fast Save, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: