information embedded by ,,, in documents your create with your software. document properties.

> Recently one his students informed him that they were able to read a cover
> letter from a job application.
> That has personal information and I would like to kindly ask that you
> please remove this.


The person must be talking about part of the information embedded by
AOO in documents your create with your software. That is part of the
document properties. Microsoft Office does the same, as far as I know.

See
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/inspect-documents-for-hidden-data-and-personal-information-HA010074435.aspx

"If you plan to share an electronic copy of a Microsoft Office Word
document with clients or colleagues, it is a good idea to review the
document for hidden data or personal information that might be stored
in the document itself or in the document properties (metadata).
Because this hidden information can reveal details about your
organization or about the document itself that you might not want to
share publicly, you might want to remove this hidden information
before you share the document with other people."
(...)

"What types of hidden data and personal information are stored in Word
documents?
Several types of hidden data and personal information can be saved in
a Word document. This information might not be immediately visible
when you view the document in Office Word 2007, but it might be
possible for other people to view or retrieve the information.

Word documents can contain the following types of hidden data and
personal information:
(...)
    Document properties and personal information    Document
properties, also known as metadata, include details about your
document such as author, subject, and title. Document properties also
include information that is automatically maintained by Office
programs, such as the name of the person who most recently saved a
document and the date when a document was created. If you used
specific features, your document might also contain additional kinds
of personally identifiable information (PII), such as e-mail headers,
send-for-review information, routing slips, and template names."

The above is for Microsoft's office products but also applies to AOO.

In Apache OpenOffice, go to the menu option File->Properties, and in
the "General" tab remove the check box from "Apply user data".