What Turnitin's Document Details Panel Reads From Your File — Field by Field

Document Details is a side panel in the similarity report that displays metadata extracted from your submitted file — author name, last modified by, submission timestamp, page size, software, fonts, spelling, and file stats. It is not AI detection: it describes file origin clues. What it can read depends on file type: .docx files yield the most complete information, and .doc files yield nothing at all in this panel. When anonymous marking is enabled, the panel is hidden until the assignment post date passes.

Turnitin's own documentation states the feature's purpose directly:

"Document metadata is often used by investigators of academic misconduct as key evidence in their cases."

That sentence is from the official Document Details page: the metadata is collected as evidence material. The same page adds two scope limits:

"This feature is only available for certain Turnitin licenses. It must be enabled by your account administrator."

So the panel is not present in every institution's license, and it is not something you can turn on or off as a student. If you can open it in your report, your institution runs a license that includes it.

The panel's power depends on your file's format, stated plainly:

"Files that are .docx can pull the most complete information. Turnitin is unable to pull document metadata from .doc files. If the submitted file is .doc there will be nothing visible in the Document Details section."

Field by field:

• Author Name — retrievable from .docx and .pdf files.
• Last Modified by — retrievable only from .docx.
• Page size — retrievable from .doc, .docx, .pdf, and .rtf files.
• Software — the app and version that last edited the file.
• Fonts — font families, sizes, and color hex codes, from .docx, .doc, and .pdf.
• Spelling — British vs. American distribution.
• File stats — file name, extension, size, character count, word count, page count.

The practical takeaway: a .docx is the most revealing format, and an old .doc is a blank slate in this panel.

These two fields are where students misread the panel most often. The official page explains what author name actually is:

"In .docx files, the author is the name of the license holder. This could be a parent, peer, or institution."

The author field is the license holder of the writing software — not necessarily the person who typed the essay. A family computer with one Microsoft account makes every file carry that account's name. Last Modified by is the last person who opened and changed the file:

"Assuming the student used one device, the name here should be the same as the name shown in Author Name. A student may ask a parent or peer to spell check a file before submission, or they may make final amendments on a different machine before they submit."

The official docs themselves list the ordinary explanations: a shared computer, a spell-check pass by a parent or friend, or final edits on another machine. Mismatched names are a flag for investigation, not a verdict on their own — Turnitin says investigators combine this with other material.

Four fields behave like origin clues rather than authorship evidence:

• Page size. Three results exist: US Letter, A4, Other (plus Multiple when the file mixes sizes). "It would be unusual if a file was not the standard paper size for your region." A paper set to A4 in an American institution is uncommon enough to investigate.
• Software. The app and version that last edited the file. The official page names one concrete example: "Look out for software such as Kingsoft or WPS Office. While popular in Asia, it would be unusual for a student in an English language speaking country to use this software." Region mismatch, again, not guilt.
• Fonts. Families, sizes, and color hex codes. The example in the official docs: an essay in black 14pt with a large pasted block in dark grey 13.5pt — a subtle copy-and-paste indicator. Font data comes from .docx, .doc, and .pdf.
• Spelling. The distribution of British vs. American forms (color/colour, realize/realise, etc.). The official page adds the ordinary cause first: "Examine the content to see if discrepancies are the result of referencing a source. If a student has used spell-checking software, they could inadvertently use a spelling variation other than their expected one."

Each of these is a reason to look closer, with the official docs supplying the innocent explanations before the suspicious ones.

One rule changes everything for privacy-conscious students:

"If Anonymous Marking is enabled then Document Details will be hidden as it will reveal information about the student. The panel will become visible once the assignment post date has passed."

In an anonymous-marking assignment the panel stays hidden until the grading window closes, because it could deanonymize the submission. You cannot see it during that period, and neither can your instructor.

This is the boundary that keeps the panel in perspective: Document Details describes the file's origin — who created it, what software handled it, how it is formatted. It does not judge whether a model wrote the text. An author-name mismatch or an odd paper size is a starting point for questions, not an AI-flag. (The AI writing report is a separate report; our guide on AI report metadata covers what belongs to which report.)

Turnitin positions the panel as evidence for investigators, and the same documentation supplies the innocent explanations — shared computers, spell-check help, region-typical software, spelling variation from references. Students who want to avoid surprises simply need to know which of these fields their file makes visible, and that a .docx is the most transparent format of all.

Document Details is the similarity report's second panel: it reads your file's metadata instead of its text — author name, last modified by, page size, software, fonts, spelling, and file stats — and the official docs say investigators use it as key evidence. What it can read depends on format: .docx reveals the most, .doc reveals nothing. The author field is the software license holder, mismatched "modified by" names have official innocent explanations, and none of it is AI detection. Anonymous marking hides the panel until the post date. Knowing the fields is knowing which file habits will be noticed — and the honest fix is choosing a normal, single-user workflow, not stripping metadata.