Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Controlling Document Properties.

Controlling Document Properties

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 11, 2019)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

You may be aware that Word allows you to track and control quite a few properties relating to your document. Whenever you save a document to disk, Word appends the property information that is used to identify the file and its contents. These properties are also used by the file management utilities in Word and can be accessed by special Word fields. If you want to change the document properties, you can do so by loading the document and then choosing Properties from the File menu. This displays the Properties dialog box for the document. You can use the different tabs and fields within the dialog box to change the information Word stores about the document. If you want Word to prompt you for document property information whenever you first save a file, you can set this feature by following these steps:

Choose Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
Click on the Save tab. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Save tab of the Options dialog box.

Make sure the Prompt for Document Properties check box is selected.
Click on OK.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (985) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Controlling Document Properties.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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