Can my professor see version history on a .docx I submit?
If I submit a .docx file can my professor or someone see the version history or edit history of the document?
Upvoters12
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If permitted by your institution, it’s best to submit your assessment as a pdf file. It will then carry no history.
I submit everything as a pdf after being accused of "improper Ai ussage" after having grammarly do my spell checking and scanning for repeated words.
"Best" in this case for OP, who is a big fat cheater who used AI to complete their assignment. Not so best for academic integrity or actually learning.
Maybe. Look under File>Info>Version History. If you can see it there, your professor will probably be able to as well. It also depends somewhat on how you submit the file.
Um, that version history is on your PC or on onedrive. It is not stored in the document.
They can potentially have the edit history if you had it turned on and didn't merge all the edits. I think there are tools for sanitizing files. You can also "print to pdf" and submit the pdf if that is allowed. Check out the "document inspector" from inside MS word also. It ...
Copy from file, paste into new file.
Yeah, that just makes it look like you used ai.
why are we submitting editable .docx files instead of pdf
Are you implying that PDFs are not editable?
I caught a cheater once cause they submitted a docx created by another student
I had the same experience. All of their homework showed the same creator, and the same timestamps as their classmate and friend. Their friend was not a great student, so even the mistakes in the paper were pretty unique to that individual making it even easier to identify!
If the Professor turns on the feature for tracking changes. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/track-changes-in-word-197ba630-0f5f-4a8e-9a77-3712475e806a
That has to be turned on by the original author to see the tracked changes. Turning it on later doesn’t pick up earlier changes.
What if you save as and use different file name
Still the same file, you could create a new document and select all/copy/paste into the new one and the new one shouldn't have any history.
I'm curious why you would want it to not show version history. All of these tips for creating a clear history (like pasting into a new document) will probably be interpreted *more* as evidence of cheating, like you just copy pasted some chatgpt output. But I agree that if perm...
I grew up in a time where you handed printed, or handwritten work in. I wouldn't want anybody else to read my previous versions as they were all rough and ready, sweary, misspelled, bad grammar, wrong word count, full of notes, and all sorts of things that had no relevance to ...
Can? Maybe. Will? Almost certainly not.
In the age of AI it's a useful indication that something was actually written by a person. So I can imagine professors today might actually look at the edit history, but simply to observe the writing process, not to evaluate early drafts.
You can wipe it by going to File-Info-Check for Issues-Inspect Document... https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/remove-hidden-data-and-personal-information-by-inspecting-documents-presentations-or-workbooks-356b7b5d-77af-44fe-a07f-9aa4d085966f
I know that some professors like to see an edit history to help you prove you’re not using AI and can successfully plead your case when the AI detector false-flags your paper.
If you attach as a file, no If you share from something like OneDrive, where they have manage authority, YES. But not if he only has view authority.
just select all copy paste into a new document and re-save it
Also, did you send him a .DOCX or did you send him a link to the file in DropBox/OneDrive? Because those have version history.
I’m going to say “probably”. If you can see the version history, they can too.
Submit it with 1 prior version that is a confession about how much you admire your professor
You can set it in document setting if it should store any version history.
Change .docx to .zip Unzip the archive Look inside That's what is in the package of stuff you're submitting Whatever you want to hide, you can probably edit there, as welll
Submit as PDF, unless there is a good reason not to use PDFs for most shared documents (resumes, assignments, etc.) Also don’t use AI to write your essay for you…
No.
Be SUPER careful of m365 docx documents!!!! BTK was discovered because he got careless and mailed the media a .doc file on a floppy disk. You aren’t doing anything as horrific but the history and massive amounts of system level data that msoffice documents randomly include in...
Such an over exaggeration. It's not randomly included information, it's pretty standard info like the author, company name, and basic info like that. There is not random system level information, it's all set and controlled
No, they'll just see your .docx file
thnakyou
Yes, they can review the markup, edits and changes saved within the document. You need to complete the paper, copy the entire document and paste into a new document for all changes to be blocked.
well, at least in early .doc files if you examined the file as binary, you could see deleted text that's left in the document format.