Pasting Text with Track Changes

One of the Word features commonly used by editors is the Track Changes feature. You may have need, from time to time, to copy text from one document to another and retain the change marks in the text being copied. For instance, if the text in the source document has some words struck through and some others highlighted as inserts, you may want the text to appear the same way in the target document. Getting the desired results is not a matter of simply cutting and pasting, though.

If you are using Word 97, there is a "bug" in the software that doesn't allow you to copy and paste properly when the text includes tracked changes. The way around this problem is to follow these steps:

1. In the source document, select the text you want to copy.
2. Choose Bookmark from the Insert menu, and define a name for your selected text. (Remember the name; you will need it in a moment.)
3. Save your source document and close it.
4. In the target document, place the insertion point where you want the text inserted.
5. Make sure that Track Changes is turned off in the target document.
6. Choose File from the Insert menu. Word displays the Insert File dialog box.
7. Using the controls in the dialog box, locate and select the document you closed in step 3.
8. In the Range box, enter the name of the bookmark you created in step 2.
9. Click OK.
10. Choose Bookmark from the Insert menu. Word displays the Bookmark dialog box.
11. Select the bookmark name you defined in step 2 and click on Delete.

That's it. You need to delete the bookmark (steps 10 and 11) because Word copies the bookmark name from the source document, along with the bookmarked text, and the change notations are in place. In addition, the bookmarked text in the source file is still there; it has not been deleted.

If you are using a later version of Word, the Word 97 "bug" has been fixed, but you still need to follow some explicit steps to get the desired results:

1. In the source document, select the text you want to copy.
2. Make sure that Track Changes is turned off in the source document. (If you don't do this, Word assumes you want to copy the text as if all the changes in the selection were accepted.)
3. Press Ctrl+C to copy the text to the Clipboard, or Ctrl+X to cut the text.
4. In the target document, place the insertion point where you want the text inserted.
5. Make sure that Track Changes is turned off in the target document.
6. Press Ctrl+V to paste the text from the Clipboard.

Another handy way to copy the text is to use the spike. Word users are so familiar with using the Clipboard to cut, copy, and paste information that we often forget about the spike. This is an area of Word that acts like a secondary Clipboard, with some significant differences. (You can learn more about the spike in other issues of WordTips or in Word's online Help.) To use the spike to copy and paste text with Track Changes markings intact, follow these steps:

1. In the source document, select the text you want to copy.
2. Press Ctrl+F3. The text is cut from the document and placed on the spike. (If you wanted to copy, not cut, then immediately press Ctrl+Z to undo the cut. The selected text still remains on the spike.)
3. In the target document, place the insertion point where you want the text inserted.
4. Make sure that Track Changes is turned off in the target document.
5. Press Shift+Ctrl+F3 to clear the spike and insert the spike's text into your document.

That's it!

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1783) 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: Pasting Text with Track Changes.