Select All Changes By a Particular Reviewer

Barry uses Word's Track Changes feature to keep tabs on what many different reviewers do to a document. He recently asked if there was a way to accept all the changes from a particular reviewer, but not those from the other reviewers.

The answer depends on the version of Word you are using. If you are using Word 97 or Word 2000, the answer is no, you cannot. All you can do is either work through the changes individually or accept or reject them all. If you are using Word 2002 or Word 2003, the story is different; all you need to do is follow these steps:

1. Make sure the Reviewing toolbar is displayed. (Select View | Toolbars | Reviewing.)
2. On the Reviewing toolbar, choose Reviewers from the Show menu. Word displays a list of reviewers that contributed to the document.
3. Select the name of a reviewer whose changes you don't want to see. The check mark next to the reviewer name disappears.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each reviewer whose changes you don't want to see. When you are done, the only reviewer that should be "visible" (has a check mark next to the name) is the one whose changes you want to accept.
5. Click the down-arrow next to the Accept tool. Word displays a drop-down menu.
6. Choose Accept All Changes Shown. Word accepts all the changes shown, meaning only those from the single reviewer.

If you are using a version of Word prior to Word 2002, you can try to use a macro to accept changes by a particular author. Because of the way that VBA functions behind-the-scenes, however, you will want to test out the macro thoroughly with your version of Word to make sure it works as expected.

The following macro will step through all the changes made to a document, comparing the name associated with each change to the name of the reviewer whose changes you want to keep. All you need to do is replace "authorname" with the reviewer's name. You can find out the reviewer's name by hovering the mouse over a change made by that reviewer. When you do, Word displays a small yellow box, similar to a ToolTip, that contains (among other things) the reviewer's name; just put the same name in the macro.

Sub ReviewAuthor()
    For Each oChange In ActiveDocument.Revisions
        If oChange.Author = "authorname" Then
            oChange.Accept
        End If
    Next
End Sub

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1639) 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: Accept All Changes by a Particular Reviewer.