How to Anonymize a Word Document for Double-Blind Peer Review

In double-blind peer review—standard practice across the ACM, IEEE Transactions, Taylor & Francis, and top management and social science journals—the stakes for document sanitization could not be higher. If an author's name, university affiliation, or institutional grant appears anywhere in the submitted draft, editorial offices desk-reject or unsubmit the manuscript within 48 hours.

This rejection is not arbitrary. When an invited reviewer spots an author's identity, their impartiality is compromised under Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. The journal must either recuse the reviewer—wasting weeks of editorial time—or cancel the review entirely.

To protect your submission from an embarrassing administrative rejection, follow this definitive 7-Point Technical Scrub before uploading your manuscript to ScholarOne, Editorial Manager, or any double-blind portal.

1. Point 1: Scrubbing Word Document Properties & OpenXML Metadata

When you create or edit a Microsoft Word document, the application embeds deep identity properties inside the OpenXML package. Specifically, the file docProps/core.xml stores:

• <dc:creator>: The full name registered in your Microsoft 365 profile.
• <cp:lastModifiedBy>: The name of the co-author who made the last change before saving.
• <cp:revision>: The total revision count and cumulative editing time.
• <Company>: The name of your university, hospital, or corporate employer.

When an editorial assistant or reviewer downloads your .docx file or when the journal portal compiles the review PDF, these properties are displayed in Adobe Acrobat's Document Properties (File > Properties > Description).

Procedure on Windows (Word 365, Word 2024, Word 2021)

1. Open your manuscript in Microsoft Word.
2. Click File in the top-left corner, then click Info.
3. Click the Check for Issues button (next to “Inspect Document”) and select Inspect Document from the dropdown.
4. In the Document Inspector dialog box, check all options, particularly Document Properties and Personal Information, Comments, Revisions, and Versions, and Hidden Text.
5. Click Inspect.
6. In the results window, locate “Document Properties and Personal Information” and click Remove All.
7. Save the document immediately.

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Figure 1: Microsoft Word Document Inspector window showing Document Properties and Personal Information removedClose

Figure 1: Figure 1: Use Microsoft Word Document Inspector to remove Document Properties and Personal Information before double-blind submission.

Procedure on macOS (Word for Mac 365, 2024)

Word for Mac does not include the Windows-style Document Inspector button in the Info panel. Instead, Microsoft locates this feature under document security settings:

1. In the top macOS application menu bar (not the ribbon inside the window), click Tools.
2. Select Protect Document... from the dropdown.
3. In the dialog that appears, locate the Privacy section at the bottom.
4. Check the box: “Remove personal information from this file on save”.
5. Click OK, then press Cmd + S to save the file.

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Figure 2: Microsoft Word for Mac Protect Document dialog showing Remove personal information on save checkboxClose

Figure 2: Figure 2: On macOS, navigate to Tools → Protect Document and enable 'Remove personal information from this file on save'.

2. Point 2: Track Changes & Hidden Margin Comments

A devastating blunder in academic publishing is submitting a Word file with tracked edits or margin comments left active. Worse still is the false security of clicking “No Markup” in the Review ribbon.

The “No Markup” Catastrophe

Selecting “No Markup” or “Original” changes only what renders on your personal monitor. The underlying OpenXML payload in word/comments.xml and word/document.xml still contains every tracked strike-through, author initial (e.g., w:author="Dr. Sarah Jenkins"), and timestamp.

When the journal's automated submission portal ingests the Word file to build the proof PDF, its headless rendering engine will often expand all tracked changes and print all margin comments directly into the reviewer's copy!

Safe Sanitization Procedure

1. Save a private backup of your working file with your co-authors' editorial debate preserved.
2. On the working submission draft, switch to the Review ribbon.
3. Click the downward arrow next to Accept and select Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking.
4. Click the downward arrow beneath Delete in the Comments section and select Delete All Comments in Document.
5. Verify that the Track Changes toggle button is completely turned off (not highlighted).

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Figure 3: Microsoft Word Review tab showing Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking dropdownClose

Figure 3: Figure 3: Click Review → Accept → Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking to bake revisions permanently into the text.

For more detail on cleaning corrupt field codes or revision loops, read our guide on how to clean track changes and hidden comments before submission.

3. Point 3: Self-Citation Phrasing & Neutral Referencing

Reviewers are experts in your narrow sub-discipline. Even if your name is absent from the file properties, how you cite your previous publications can identify your research group immediately.

The Bad Habit: First-Person Self-Identification

Avoid writing in the first person when referencing your prior research:

The “[Anonymous, 2024]” Trap

Authors often redact their citations by replacing them with “[Author, 2024]” or “[Anonymous, 2023]” in both the body text and the reference list. Unless your target journal's Guide for Authors explicitly mandates this convention (such as certain sociology or legal journals), do not do this.

Redacting citations to “[Author]” tells the reviewer that the cited paper is yours. If your prior work is the only published study on a specific synthetic catalyst, the reviewer will simply check the literature for that topic and identify you immediately. Citing yourself in the objective third person treats your prior work as just another contribution to the field, maintaining genuine impartiality.

4. Point 4: Institutional Grant IDs & Funding Disclosures

Research grants from federal and national agencies are indexed in open public databases:

• NIH RePORTer: Searchable by project number, Principal Investigator, and institution.
• NSF Award Search: Searchable by 7-digit award ID.
• European Commission CORDIS: Searchable by Horizon Europe grant agreement number.
• UKRI Gateway to Research: Searchable by grant reference.

The Solution: Two-File Submission Model

Double-blind portals (like ScholarOne and Editorial Manager) utilize a strict Two-File Architecture:

1. Unblinded Title Page File: Contains full author names, institutional affiliations, ORCID iDs, corresponding author contact, Acknowledgments, and full Funding disclosures with grant IDs. This file is seen exclusively by the editor.
2. Blinded Main Manuscript File: Contains the Title, Abstract, Keywords, Main Text (IMRaD), Figures, Tables, and References. Omit the Acknowledgments and Funding sections entirely from this file, or replace them with a single placeholder: “Funding details have been withheld to preserve double-blind peer review.”

5. Point 5: Ethics & IRB Statements Naming Institutions

Ethical compliance statements for studies involving human subjects or animals frequently leak institutional identities:

Upload the official, unblinded Institutional Review Board approval letter as a separate file designated as “Supplementary File for Editors Only” during portal upload.

6. Point 6: Figure Apparatus Photos, Software Metadata & Lab Watermarks

Reviewers often deduce authorship from graphic elements embedded within figures:

7. Point 7: File Naming & Word Template Paths

The final vulnerability is the file itself. Authors often name their manuscript file after the lead author or laboratory:

✕ Smith_Lee_IEEE_Trans_Submission_2026.docx
✕ Stanford_NanoLab_Revision_Final.docx
✓ Main_Manuscript_Anonymous.docx
✓ Manuscript_Text_DoubleBlind.docx

Furthermore, Word stores internal template relationships in word/_rels/settings.xml.rels. If your Word installation is attached to a custom institutional template or corporate add-in, the file path may reference your local user directory: C:\Users\sarah_jenkins\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\Normal.dotm. Running the Document Inspector (Point 1) breaks external template links and resets the base document to generic defaults.

8. The 7-Point Technical Scrub Checklist

Review this checklist before saving your final submission file:

9. Publisher Double-Blind Policies Compared

Examine how major publishing houses handle double-blind submissions:

• ACM (Association for Computing Machinery): Mandates double-blind review across most flagship SIG conferences (CHI, SIGGRAPH, CSCW). Consult our ACM Manuscript Formatting Guidelines for camera-ready vs review layout.
• IEEE Transactions: Many IEEE societies (such as the IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Signal Processing Society) operate double-blind tracks. See our IEEE Formatting Guide.
• Taylor & Francis: Most Routledge humanities, behavioral science, and international relations journals require two separate files on ScholarOne. Review our Taylor & Francis Guidelines.
• General Pre-Submission: Cross-check your formatting with our comprehensive Academic Journal Manuscript Submission Checklist.

Related guides: Inserting continuous line numbers in Word · Formatting 3-line academic tables · Cleaning track changes & comments