Hidden in Web Layout only

How the text is hidden

<w:webHidden/> is a run property, resolved through the same style chain as w:vanish. Word writes it on table-of-contents page numbers, because Web Layout has no pages to number. A reader opening the file in Print Layout sees the text.

Why a model still reads it

A pipeline that renders Web Layout — DOCX to HTML — shows its reviewer a page without this text while the extractor still hands the words to the model. The divergence is a fact about that pipeline, not about the document.

What we do about it

The parser sets a webHidden flag when the property is active through the chain **and** the run's text contains at least one letter. The rule keys on that flag at informational with action disclose: the verdict does not move, nothing is removed, and nobody is accused. Until 0.126.0 this property was folded into docx.vanish, which stripped visible page numbers from the caller's text; the parser now tells the two apart rather than carving one out.

How often it fires

0% of open-data portal DOCX — 200 real government publications, written in Word (genre: government, NOT contracts), measured 2026-08-23.

This is an alert-volume number and nothing else. It says how often the alarm sounds on documents as found — not how often it is right, and not whether what it found was harmless. Documents as found may themselves carry concealment. Read it against the population named above rather than as a property of documents in general.