Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 28, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
Word includes a feature that allows you to track changes made to a document. This is controlled by using the Track Changes option from the Tools menu. One of the ways in which Word marks your changes on a document is to include a change bar at the side of a line in which a change was made. This is fairly common in editing, but it may not be to your liking. You can turn off the change bars by following these steps:
Figure 1. The Track Changes tab of the Options dialog box.
Note that making this setting change hides the appearance of the change bars. Rest assured they are still there and can be redisplayed by choosing to display them again.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (484) 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: Turning Off Track Changes Change Bars.
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Do you want to modify how Word marks changes in your document? It's easy to do, depending on your version of Word.
Discover MoreTrack Changes is a great tool; it allows you to see what changes were made in a document and then determine whether you ...
Discover MoreTrack Changes is a great tool to use so that you can, well, "track" what changes are made during the development of a ...
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