John publishes a journal whose articles are peer-reviewed, and the reviewers are supposed to remain anonymous from the person who originally wrote the article. As reviewers (called referees) are reviewing articles, they keep Track Changes turned on so that modifications and comments stand out in the document.
The problem is that Word, as part of the Track Changes feature, also tracks the name of the person who made a particular change. If the original article author got the article back, all that would be necessary would be to hover the mouse pointer over a change or comment, and the name of the referee would be visible.
It is possible, of course, to tell the referees to make a change or two to Word prior to making any changes in an article being reviewed. Just display the User Information tab of the Options dialog box (Tools | Options), and then replace the user's name with a space or some nondescript wording, such as "Referee 1." Any changes from that point on will then bear that name, and anonymity will be preserved.
Note that merely deleting the user name and initials in the dialog box will not work; you must use a space or a new word/name. The dialog box will put the original name back in an empty name box and a letter in the initial box.
If the article is open in a copy of Word 2002 or Word 2003, you can follow these steps to get rid of identifying information in comments and changes:
The next time you save the document, Word replaces the referee's names with the word "Author." There is other identifying information that is removed, as well, so you should only use this method if you don't mind that information also being removed. (Things like author information that is stored in the document's Properties area is removed.)
There is a more selective, but involved, method that can be used to just remove the referee's information. This method will work with any version of Word. Follow these general steps:
{\*\revtbl {Unknown;}{Jane Doe;}}
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (347) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Making Sure Changes and Comments are Anonymous.
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2020-06-22 16:33:26
Anon
This no longer works. The latest version of word only lets you remove comments, not remove author information for comments.
2019-03-14 11:02:31
Maggie
I was so excited to read this, as I've been asked how this can be done by a number of people at my firm. I created a document with two different authors' comments. When I opened the .rtf file in Word 2016, the string "revtbl" could not be found. However, both commenter's names were listed in several places in the file. So, what I did was a global Find-And-Replace for the author's name I wanted to change, saved the file, and opened it in Word. Voila! Only that author's name changed. Exactly what I wanted--thanks!!!!
2018-08-29 13:24:15
Michelle
When I do this, all of my comments are deleted. I don't want them to be removed, I want to make it so that instead of saying my name, it says "Anonymous" or really anything else.
2014-10-21 15:34:38
Jody
I was hoping this tip would work with Word 2013, but as soon as you save it back from .rtf to either .docx or .doc it loses the change changes you make to the comment name.
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