Author names in Office documents

[ErikJan]

When I start typing an author name in the "Save As" dialog box of an Office application, it appears that Office have remembered previous entries and suggests matching entries. My problem is that some of these entries are wrong and/or old... where (prob. in the registry?) can I find this list so I can clean it up???

(Same for Tags, Title and Subject - I'm searching the net but didn't find anything yet)

[HansV]

Are you sure the suggested names, tags and titles are the same for each document? I'd have thought that they would be specific for each document...

[ErikJan]

Yes, it shows a drop down with suggestions based on the characters you type. It's a mystery where it gets the suggestions as I'm seeing odd things not related to WORD for example...

Dropdown.png

[HansV]

I'm afraid I have no idea. (I have never seen this dropdown list, by the way, and can't get it to show in Word 2010)

[ErikJan]

Interesting... I had it in Office 2007, 2010 and took the screen capture just now from 2013. Works in two completely different places (work and home)... Just click on e.g. Authors, then click behind the existing author (after the semi-colon) and start typing...

[HansV]

Yeah, I tried that several times. Nothing at all...

[Rudi]

This (I think) is a windows thing... Almost like MRU's. When I click in the Author tag, is list even things like Air Supply, ABBA.... etc. This must come from Windows Media Player, or some global store of tags and names???

2013-07-15_20h18_06.png

[StuartR]

I also get no suggested text at all. Word 2010 32-bit on Windows 7 64 bit.

[Rudi]

Maybe you don't have Bands starting the "A" (just jokin')

Just to inform, I am on Win 8 with Office 2013.
Erik Jan, are you sure you had this list with Office 2007/2010? Maybe you recall it from tags in Windows Media Player (or the like).

[Jay Freedman]

I do see that in Word 2007, 2010, and 2013 -- all the versions since Office started using Windows Explorer code to display the various file dialogs. Also, Windows Explorer itself shows the same thing. Also, I see it in both Windows 7 and Windows 8.



The suggestions appear to come from the Author data in other similar files in the same folder (and maybe its subfolders). I searched the registry for some of the unusual ones, and they weren't found.

[Rudi]

Hi Jay,

Nice to see you at Eileens again.

This is a mystery...
If its not available in the registry, where would one be able to edit/delete these? (rhetorical question )

[ErikJan]

All, thanks for your discussion on this. Indeed I have seen this at least in 2007, 2010 and 2013. I just tried the Explorer approach and I see that too now. So it's probably not 'just' Office. I too did search the registry before I started this thread but couldn't find it and I confirm the fact that I do see titles of artists suggested for which I have MP3 files on my system...
So there's two options left (I guess):
1. It's still in the registry but encrypted somehow (as I wouldn't begin to understand why that should be encrypted, I don't believe that's a likely option)
2. It's in a file on the system somewhere

If the latter is true, someone must have found that one before and there must be a way to edit / clean-up I guess.

[HansV]

I do see the popup list on my work PC. It looks to me like the names come from Outlook - a quick sample suggests that they correspond to the nickname list that you get when you start to type in the To:, Cc: or Bcc: box in an e-mail message in Outlook.
If that is correct, you'd have to edit the nickname list. You can get a free nickname editor from Nirsoft: NK2Edit.

[ErikJan]

Thanks Hans, initially I thought that as well (I do know NK2Edit and use that sometimes), but that is all about email addresses. The suggestions that show in the dialog for files are different...

[HansV]

On my work PC, the list does show e-mail nicknames (not e-mail addresses), but perhaps there are multiple sources...