Patent ID: 7712029

Claim:
A method for removing personal information from a first document created by a document-generating application that stores the personal information and makes the personal information visible at a comment block of the document, the method comprising: activating a privacy option comprising computer-implemented instructions provided by the document-generating application; removing from all portions of the first document except for a body of the first document at least one piece of the personal information without deleting the first document, the at least one piece of the personal information being requested by the document-generating application during installation of the document-generating application; replacing the at least one piece of personal information created by the document-generating application with generic information visible at each comment block of the first document, wherein the generic information was not previously visible at each comment block of the first document; receiving at least one additional piece of personal information into the first document after activation of the privacy option of the first document, wherein the at least one additional piece of personal information entered into the first document is one of the following: when a save option is not available for the first document, removed from the first document as soon as the at least one additional piece of personal information is added to the first document, and when the save option is available for the first document, removed from the document as soon as the first document is saved; and saving the first document, when the save option is available for the first document, with the generic information replacing the at least one piece of removed personal information and the at least one additional piece of personal information, wherein saving the first document comprises, in response to activating the privacy option, replacing the at least one piece of removed personal information and the at least one additional piece of personal information with the generic information in both a memory representation of the first document and a file representation of the first document.