Remove text attribute from all products

Hi,

I have done some tinkering to the way attributes lay out on the invoice.
However I have an 'extra details' text attributes and where customers buy more than one item the above only works if there is something entered into the text box.

So I need to either,

Remove this text attribute from all the products. I can't seem to do this in the options names manager as it isn't visible in the list.

Update: I sussed this. I changed it to a dropdown box, added a dummy value, added the dummy value to all products, then deleted all values for that option name.

Or,

If possible somehow, when a customer does not enter anything for a text attribute, that attribute (albeit blank) is still applied to the order.

I hope that makes sense.