Do this. Pickup any office document ( Word , Excel, Powerpoint ) which was sent across to you & have a look at the properties.

Bet  you could be amazed with the details you find.

In some documents I received I found details of persons who originally wrote the document, over a period of time it was changed hands & the new author simply edited it & sent it across as his or her own work.

Solution ?

Cleanup the properties before sending the file across.

Office 2007 & 2010 have a built-in feature which can be found under

File>Info>Check for Issues > Inspect Document.

And oh ! This is not a new Feature.

For office 2003 / 2002 ( XP ), you have to download & use an add-on.

Available here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=144E54ED-D43E-42CA-BC7B-5446D34E5360&displaylang=en

Picture this scenario.

You have a bunch of documents to be printed and the contents are not desirable to be public.  ( e.g. Your pay slip )

The printer is always busy and colleagues hanging around at all times.

Here is a solution which have been around for a long time:

Ever seen this option ?

Hint: its on the properties of the printer driver

When used, the printer will print only when the PIN is typed into the printers control panel.

Dependency: you may not always find this option for all printers. Reason : your printer driver does not support this feature. ( don’t call Microsoft and complain )

I first started writing this Blog on Friday 22 May 2009 1:58 pm.

And then there was IRM which allowed an e-mail sender to restrict a recipient from reply-all  functionality.

Very Useful when sending an e-mail to a large amount of people.

(I will not  discuss pain points here. )

But how about preventing a reply-all without IRM ?

Oh yes its possible, and no this is not some new feature of outlook 2010. It existed even before IRM was on the scene.

First a brief line on forms...

In the outlook world, Every e-mail, calendar entry, contact, task, note is a form.

You can create your own form put icons on it, write code behind the icons to react to user actions.

When you send an e-mail you are using the IPM.Note form.

So the next time you want to prevent a reply-all how about just removing or disabling the code behind the reply-all ?

Now to prevent a reply all just remove the functionality behind the icon.

That is exactly what the procedure documented in the below link does.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA011142241033.aspx?pid=CH010393801033

Warning : this is not a true reply-all prevention solution. It just turns off the reply all icon in outlook. 

For more information on forms

Creating Custom Forms

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA012106101033.aspx

I first Started writing this Blog on 22 May 2009 - Thanks to One note I have the date.

Solving the family tree challenge with Visio ( long one )

securing printing

removing hidden document information

Securing your Home Wi-fi internet connection. ( long one )

and many more... ( which i started first writing on the 22 may 2009 when i was at the delhi airport for about 6 hours )

I have the date because one note puts the date in a very prominent location.

Ever wanted to send an invite to a whole lot of people by e-mail & wanted it to look professional rather then sending a generic one to all users Bcc'ed ?

Here is a method to generate bulk personalized e-mails to  a set of uses ( from a list ) using the mail Merge Feature of Microsoft Word. ( Outlook used to send the e-mail )

• Add the Recipients to your outlook contacts ( Highly recommended as this would simplify the steps later on -

If needed create a subfolder in the contacts folder. )

• Open Microsoft Word.

• Select the "Mailing" tab from the ribbon.

• Start mail merge > e-mail messages.

Here Type the body of your e-mail.

• "Select recipients" > Select from outlook contacts

• Preview the e-mail by selecting the "Preview Results"  Icon.

• Click on Finish & merge

• Click on Send e-mail Messages

• Type the Subject of the e-mail

• Click on Ok.

Further Options to customize the e-mail

• You can Customize the  Greeting from the below menus

Greeting Line Or Insert Merge Field ( More Granular control )

e.g. Each e-mail could be customized with a Dear Mr. xyz ( Pulled from the contact information )

For more information : read the word help file. ( It has detailed instructions on all the options you see on the ribbon )

Lesson Learnt the Hard way:

Keep your machine Disconnected from the network ( or Keep outlook offline )

After the mails are generated, review them from the outlook outbox. If the e-mails are as expected, go ahead & make outlook online to have the e-mail sent.