The New York Times is running an article about an unsigned Microsoft Word document circulated by the Democratic National Committee lodging criticisms against Samuel Alito, President Bush's latest Supreme Court nomination.

The unsigned document rubbed many readers the wrong way. Luckily for them, it wasn't hard to figure out with whom to get upset. That's because the document's metadata contained the author's name and then some.

The article describes a few more metadata missteps, each entirely avoidable. The Times also offers a solution:

Saving a copy of a document in "rich text format" (RTF), or as a simple text file first (options in the Save menu), and then converting it into the common "portable document format" (PDF) before circulating it is a good tack, Mr. Kennedy said.

Not bad, but Microsoft offers a free add-in designed specifically to clean up messy, incriminating metadata. The Remove Hidden Data tool is your best bet in avoiding embarrassing metadata mistakes.