A .pptx (and its .pptm / .potx variants) carries a lot that never reaches the projector. Speaker notes written only for the presenter, slides hidden from the show, and the identities of everyone who commented all sit inside the file. Modern threaded comments go one step further and record each reviewer's email address, not just a display name.
Scan a PowerPoint fileThe standout finding is the speaker notes. They are written for the presenter and never shown to an audience, so they routinely hold candid framing, unpublished figures and names the slides carefully avoid. The scan reports how much notes text exists and shows the opening lines so you can judge the content, not just that notes are present.
Slides hidden from the show are still fully in the file and are flagged with a count - hiding a slide only keeps it out of the slideshow, not out of the document. Reviewer comments are read with their authors, and modern threaded comments go further: ppt/authors.xml stores each commenter's userId, which for an Active Directory or Microsoft account is an email address or directory principal, naming the individual and their organisation rather than a display name.
External hyperlinks from the slides are pulled out and the revealing ones highlighted - a mailto: that names a person, or a \\server or file: path that maps internal infrastructure - alongside links to internal wikis and intranets. The usual author, company, template and total-editing-time fields, plus counts of embedded images that may carry their own EXIF, complete the scan.
This is a selection. The full field manual documents the fields read from each format.
Yes. Speaker notes live inside the .pptx and travel with it whenever you send the file. They are written only for the presenter, so they often contain candid points, unpublished figures and names that are not on any slide. A scan shows how much notes text exists and the opening lines.
No. Hiding a slide only keeps it out of the slideshow - it stays fully in the file and is readable by anyone who opens it. The scan flags how many hidden slides a .pptx contains.
It can. Modern threaded comments are stored in ppt/authors.xml with each commenter's userId, which for an Active Directory or Microsoft account is an email address or directory principal - naming the person and their organisation, not just a display name.
See everything first by scanning the file here, then save a cleaned copy in your browser - that clears the document properties and comment authors. To remove speaker notes and hidden slides themselves, use PowerPoint's File > Info > Check for Issues > Inspect Document, which has dedicated options for presentation notes and off-slide content.
File X-Ray reads PowerPoint files entirely in your browser - the file never leaves your device. For this format you can also download a clean copy with the metadata removed. Scan a file now.