[vunderba]

Even Microsoft Word stores revision history inside .docx files, and that’s been used to expose plagiarism. I heard about one case where a student took an existing paper (I believe from a previous year/student) and pasted it into Word. They then edited it just enough to make it look different.

However, they didn’t remove the embedded revision history in the .docx file they submitted, so that went about as well as you can expect.

[Dylan16807]

Are you sure about that? I could easily see this happen with a web document link, but for a docx file the change tracking is off by default and pretty obtrusive. Basic metadata would be fine, formatting might be quirky but that's not exactly a smoking gun...

[vunderba]

It’s been a while since I heard about it, but IIRC the professor was a stickler for a very specific paper format, so they would distribute a .docx template file with Track Changes already enabled and require students to write their papers using that template.

I also think that when track changes was first introduced in earlier versions of MS Word, there wasn’t as much concern about privacy/telemetry as there is now, so it wasn’t made as prominently obvious.

[kelnos]

> pasted it into Word

I'd be surprised if copy/paste carries the revision history, though. Wouldn't they have had to start with the original document (from the other student) and make their edits directly, and then submit that file?

[Gander5739]

I think they mean the revision history in the submitted .docx file showed the copied paper being inserted (as a single change), and then various changes to attempt to hide the plagiarism.