Topic: Track Changes

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Changing How Changes are Noted in Word Setting up the track changes feature of Word to look different than the default options. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Colors for Tracking Changes not Acting Properly When the Track Changes feature is turned on, Word, by default, displays the edits made by each document editor in different colors. If you aren’t seeing different colors for each editor on your system, it could be related to a configuration setting in the Options dialog box. This tip explains the setting and walks you through changing it. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Deleting Table Columns with Track Changes Turned On If you are editing a document with Track Changes turned on, Word won’t let you delete a column in a table and have it marked as a change. There are ways around this problem, which are discussed in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Disabling Track Changes Completely Word’s Track Changes feature cannot be disabled, but you can change the keyboard shortcut used to turn it on. This tip describes how to find that shortcut and delete it. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Getting a Warning for Markup Many people, when collaborating on a document with others, use the Track Changes feature to show the effects of their editing. When printing your document, you may not want Word to include these changes in the printout. You can instruct the program to warn you if you try to print and there are any tracked changes or comments in the document. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Making Sure Changes and Comments are Anonymous When using Track Changes, Word normally notes the originator of a particular comment or change. This information can then be displayed so that other readers can know who did what. If you want comments and changes to be anonymous, then there are a couple of things you can do, as described in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Multiple Document Users Tips for those documents on which multiple people will be working. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Pasting Text with Track Changes Track Changes is a great tool for developing documents. If you want to copy text from one document to another, with tracked changes intact, you’ll need the info in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Printing Documents without Markup If you have a document with Track Changes turned on, you can accumulate quite a bit of “markup” in it. Here’s how you can print the document without that markup showing up. Microsoft Word versions: 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Printing without Track Changes Marks Turn on Track Changes, and Word will automatically notate where you make edits in your document. Normally these change marks print when you commit your document to hard copy. If you don't want the marks to print, then you'll appreciate the information in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Protecting Tracked Changes Track Changes is a great tool for editors and collaborators to use when creating documents. An author, seeking changes from editors, may want to protect a document so that nobody else can accept or reject changes made in the document. This tip explains how that protection can be achieved. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Rejecting Changes In a Document The Track Changes feature of Word is very powerful, allowing an individual or a team to track exactly what changes are made to a document over time. You may have a scenario where an editor wants to undo someone else’s change, but then show that the “undo” was performed. As explained in this tip, such an action goes against the intent of how Track Changes be used. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Select All Changes By a Particular Reviewer If you are using Word 2002 or Word 2003, and you’ve been tracking changes in a document, you can display all the changes made by individual editors. This tip shows how easy such a task can be. Microsoft Word versions: 2002 | 2003

Setting Change Bars Manually A couple of ways you can add change bars to your document. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Setting Change Bars Manually in WordBasic A couple of ways you can add change bars to your document. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95

Tracked Changes Notification when Opening If you have Word configured to show markup on-screen and you look through a document, it is easy to tell where changes have been made. It is a bit more difficult to find just a few changes in a long document, however. In such instances, it may be helpful to get some sort of visual notification, when you open a document, that there are changes in that document. This tip provides a couple of macros you can use to display just such a warning. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Tracked Changes Won't Go Away Track Changes is a great tool when editing a document, but the ways that it affects your document can sometimes be confusing. If you have changes that don’t seem to go away when you think they should, some of the answers could be found in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Turning Off Change Bars If Track Changes is turned on, any edits to a document are accompanied by vertical bars that appear to the left or right side of the changed text. If these change bars distract you, make a quick change to the configuration of Word and you can turn them off completely. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Turning Track Changes Off for Selected Areas Track Changes is a great tool to use so that you can, well, “track” what changes are made during the development of a document. In some parts of your document, however, you don’t particularly care if Word keeps track of what is changing. In those instances it would be nice to turn off the feature for selected areas of the document. While Word doesn’t allow you to do this, there are some workarounds you can try to achieve the same desired result. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Using Different Colors with Tracked Changes When changes are made in a document with Track Changes turned on, each author’s changes are normally shown in a different color. If you want your changes to show in different colors based on different editing passes, here’s how to get the color changes you need. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Using the Reviewing Toolbar The Reviewing toolbar is a handy location for many of the tools often used by editors when working on a document. Here’s an overview of which tools are available and what they do. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

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