DOCX Comments & Track Changes
Comments and Tracked Changes are notorious sources of data leakage in enterprise environments. In the DOCX format, comments are stored in a separate word/comments.xml file, linked back to the main document text via <w:commentRangeStart> tags.
These files help you verify that your document sanitization tools (or DLP pipelines) successfully detect and strip out sensitive editorial history before files are shared externally, or conversely, that your e-discovery tools successfully extract this hidden context.
Comments placeholder
spytm_Comments_placeholder.docx35.8 KB
A document containing active margin comments and editorial annotations to test `comments.xml` relationship extraction and sanitization.
Frequently Asked Questions
Use Cases
- Testing Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and sanitization tools to ensure hidden comments are fully purged.
- Validating e-discovery software to ensure editorial history and author names attached to comments are extracted for legal hold.
- Ensuring standard text extractors ignore deleted text (Track Changes) so the final string reflects only the clean document state.