What is track changes

It is very important that you get to know the insight of the topic completely. To know that what is track changes in Word you first of all need to understand the purpose of it. The answer to the question i.

To know what is track changes in Word the process for both Mac and Windows will be explained in full. The best part of the track changes is that you get to know where and at which line of the Word changes have been made. It is very important that you know the process of track changes on both Mac and windows. The best part is that you will get the insight that how easy the process of applying the changes are.

The steps are very simple and therefore it is highly regarded to apply the steps that are mentioned as under. The PDF is a format that is universal in nature. Other operations and commands, in addition to Track Changes , Accept , and Reject , may be unavailable or disabled in a document when tracking is locked. To easily find out whether there are any tracked changes or comments — another type of revision in your document, select the Review tab and click Previous or Next in the Changes group.

The message below is shown if no comments or tracked changes are found in the document. This message is shown if you click Previous or Next and if no comments or tracked changes are found in the document. Note that this method may remove more data from your document than you like and it is not always totally clear what Word does.

For more details, see the Microsoft article Remove hidden data and personal information by inspecting documents, presentations, or workbooks. To make sure that Word always displays tracked changes when you open a document, turn on the Trust Center setting Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving. For details, see How to avoid sending Word documents to others with tracked changes that should not be shared above.

To do that, you must make sure to turn on Track Changes. To make sure that Word shows a warning if you attempt to email a document with tracked changes, turn on the Trust Center setting Warn before printing, saving or sending a file that contains tracked changes or comments.

To neutralize tracked changes both as regards author names and time information, you can use the Document Inspector. NOTE This method may have undesired side-effects. This means that the removal of name and properties will take place also the next time you save. That is most likely not what you want. The Remove All button also removes all custom document properties and clears all data from built-in properties.

If you have DocProperty fields in the document, they will show errors unless you have locked or unlinked the fields first. For more details about the Document Inspector , see the Microsoft article Remove hidden data and personal information by inspecting documents, presentations, or workbooks.

The term metadata that is, data about the data is used to refer to this kind of information. For details about how to reduce or remove different types of metadata from your documents, see the Microsoft article Remove hidden data and personal information by inspecting documents, presentations, or workbooks.

This message is shown when you click Previous or Next if there are no comments or tracked changes in the document. Balloons are only shown in All Markup view. In the Accept and Reject menus, the commands Accept All Changes Shown and Reject All Changes Shown are disabled if comments and all types of tracked changes by all people are already selected to be shown.

The commands are only enabled if not all comments and tracked changes are selected to be shown. If, for example, you turn off display of Formatting changes , the commands will be enabled.

A Word document can include many types of fields. Fields include instruction to Word about which content to show.

Examples of fields are tables of contents TOC , numbers in captions, DocProperty fields that show values of custom document properties. If tracked changes are shown, and if the All Markup display option is selected, you may see many fields twice, both as deleted and inserted. This happens for fields whose results are affected by tracked changes. This influences the layout and it may look confusing. If you view tracked changes inline and if you have added or deleted numbered items, Word will show changes to all numbers that are affected by the changes.

This may influence the layout and it may look confusing. However, Word will fix the numbering as soon as you accept or reject the changes. See the example below. Example of automatic numbering with tracked changes. Word automatically opens with tracked changes displayed if the Trust Center setting Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving is turned on. See How to avoid sending Word documents to others with tracked changes that should not be shared above. For more details, see How to make sure that other users see tracked changes in the same way as you do above.

The problem is most likely that track changes has been locked with a password. Only users who know the password can unlock tracking. See How to lock tracking so Track Changes can't be turned off above. In order to get rid of track changes in Word, you need to remove the changes by accepting or rejecting them. See How to remove tracked changes in Word above. You may contact the relevant people to find out whether you will be allowed to change the name. If different authors have added tracked changed and comments in separate copies of a Word document, you may want to merge all those documents into one document.

You can do that using Word's Combine feature as explained in this step-by-step-procedure. I experienced some time ago that the Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box looked too small. I found out the it was missing the headings that are normally used to group the options.

The dialog box has a lot of options. For any user who is not familiar with all the options, the missing group headings would make it really difficult or impossible to find out what the individual options refer to. The problem with the missing headings in the dialog box seemed to appear randomly. Sometimes the headings were there, sometimes not. I reported the problem to Microsoft.

The answer from Microsoft, after some troubleshooting, was that this specific dialog box has a minimum vertical resolution requirement. This means that the headings will not be shown if the screen resolution is below a certain level.

Even if my screen resolution was more than sufficient to allow the headings to be shown, they sometimes were not shown. I found out that zooming up in Word was what made the headings in the dialog box disappear even if zooming has nothing to do with the size of the dialog box or the screen resolution.

Microsoft is not going to fix this problem. If you run into the problem with disappearing headings in the Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box, the solution is the following:. You can compare it to Figure 22 above. Thanks to Shauna Kelly who wrote an article about Track changes, covering Word and earlier versions. It is still visited many times a day. However, since that article was written and last revised when Word was the newest version of Word, it does not cover all the changes that have been made to the features since then.

It covers all the areas that Shauna covered in her article, however updated to match newer versions of Word. This article also covers all the new and changed Track Changes features added after Word See a comparison of the two add-ins. For detailed information about how comments in Word work, see my article How comments in Word work. This article has explained how Track Changes in Word works. I hope this article helps you in your future work with tracked changes in Word.

Track Changes in Word — how it works Learn what Track Changes is, how to track changes in Word, how to remove tracked changes in Word, and much more. T able of contents. What is Track Changes in Word? Where is track changes in Word? Is Track Changes the same as redlining in Word? Basic concepts you should know.

There are four steps to tracking changes. How to enable track changes. How to turn on Track Changes in Word. How to stop tracking changes. How to turn off track changes in Word. Is Track Changes on or off? How to display tracked changes in Word. Example 1 — Simple Markup display. How to hide tracked changes in Word without removing the changes.

How to remove tracked changes. How to accept or reject a single tracked change. How to accept or reject all tracked changes in a Word document at once.

Formatting changes — how of get rid of them. How to accept formatting changes and keep all other tracked changes. How to stop tracking formatting changes. How to copy text to another document WITH the tracked changes. Tracked changes and printing. How to print a document with tracked changes. How to print a document without tracked changes. How to print a list of the tracked changes in a Word document.

Handling multiple authors. How to see who made the changes in a document in case of more than one author. Colors and Track Changes. How to display tracked changes with the same colors no matter who made the changes.

How to display each author's changes in a different color. Do tracked changes made by a specific author always appear with the same color? How to make sure that other users see tracked changes in the same way as you do. Track Changes and author names. Where does the author name shown in tracked changes come from? How to change the name shown in new tracked changes you make. How to change the user name in existing tracked changes.

How to remove the name from existing tracked changes. How to display only the tracked changes made by specific authors. How to find the differences between two versions of a document.

How to merge track changes from two or more documents into one document. Advanced Track Changes Options. How to open the Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box. Overview of all options in the Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box. Special tips. Tips on special situations where Track Changes may be helpful. How to get access to the Accept or Reject Changes dialog box from older versions of Word.

Balloon settings are found in two places — how are they related? Security issues. How to avoid sending Word documents to others with tracked changes that should not be shared. How to lock tracking so Track Changes can't be turned off.

How to find out whether there are tracked changes in your document. How to make sure that Word always displays tracked changes when you open a document. How to make sure that Word warns you before emailing a document that contains tracked changes.

I want to send my document outside the company — I want to leave tracked changes in the document, but I don't want anyone to see who made the tracked changes or when they were made — how can I do that? What other kinds of hidden information might be saved in my Word document?

Related information. Terminology used in Word in relation to Track Changes In the different commands related to Track Changes in Word, you will find a number of terms in use. Reject Removes or deletes a tracked change from the document, as if it had not been made Display Show The way Word visually presents the tracked changes on the screen In other language versions of Word than English, the confusion may be even worse since the translations may not be consistent.

Basic concepts — what you should know before you start using Track Changes. Tell Word to track changes. Tell Word to display tracked changes. Tell Word how to display tracked changes.

How to enable track changes in Word As explained above, you must turn on Track Changes to tell Word to track all the changes you make in your document. How to turn on Track Changes in Word You can use different methods to turn on Track Changes in order to start tracking your changes.

This is the fastest method. How to stop tracking changes in Word As explained above, you enable track changes by turning on Track Changes. How to turn off track changes in Word You can turn off Track Changes using the same methods as you can use for turning it on.

How to find out whether Track Changes is on or off. Displaying or hiding tracked changes How to display tracked changes in Word Word has a number of options that influence how tracked changes are displayed. The result is determined by the combination of your settings in: the Display for Review menu see Figure 7 below the Show Markup menu you can see the menu in Figure 14 below.

Display option How are tracked changes displayed Simple Markup Red vertical lines in the margin show where changes are found. All Markup Shows all changes with different colors and lines. If Track Changes is on, insertions and deletions are always tracked. This option can also be turned on or off from the Track Changes Options dialog box see the dialog box in Figure 21 below.

Moves of content are only tracked if you have checked the Track Moves check box in the Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box see the dialog box in Figure 22 below. Formatting changes are only tracked if you have checked the Track Formatting check box in the Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box. This option can also be turned on or off from the Track Changes Options dialog box.

No Markup Shows the document as if you had accepted all the tracked changes. Original Shows the document as if you had rejected all the tracked changes. Summary of the facts from above: In order to see tracked changes, you must select either Simple Markup or All Markup from Display for Review menu.

In the Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box, set up how you want to see the tracked changes. How to hide tracked changes in Word without removing the changes When working with tracked changes in a document, you may sometimes want to see the document without displaying the changes.

How to remove tracked changes in Word As explained above, tracked changes remain in the document until they are accepted or rejected. Formatting changes — how of get rid of them and stop marking formatting changes In many cases, you may only be interested in keeping track of content changes in the form of insertions and deletions.

Since only formatting changes were shown, only formatting changes will be accepted. See below if you want to stop tracking new formatting changes you make.

How to stop tracking formatting changes When Track Changes is on, the types of changes that are tracked depend on your current settings in the Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box. Make sure to turn off the Track formatting check box. Click OK. How to copy text with tracked changes When copying and pasting text with tracked changed, the method to use depends on the result you want. Now copy and paste. Tracked changes and printing How to print a document with tracked changes If your document includes tracked changes, you can print it so the printout shows the tracked changes.

Under Settings , click the first button shows Print All Pages or another text depending on your latest print settings. Select Print Markup in the menu that appears. See Figure 12 below. Make other selections as appropriate. Then click Print. How to print a document without tracked changes Even if your document includes tracked changes, you can print it so that the tracked changes are hidden in the printout. Make sure that Print Markup in the menu that appears does not have a check mark.

See Figure 12 above. Select List of Markup in the menu that appears. You can see List of Markup in Figure 12 above. Multiple authors and Track Changes How to see who made the changes in a document in case of more than one author.

Check that screen tips are set to be shown. In all color boxes, make sure to select a named color instead of By Author. For example, to see all insertions as Red, click the Color field next to Insertions and select Red.

In all color boxes, select By Author. The Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box offers the colors shown below. I found the following: If By Author is selected, Word seems to use the 20 different colors illustrated below for markup types that offer the left-most list of colors illustrated above. However, if you have already previously added tracked changes using other settings in any document in that Word session i.

The 20 different colors used are not the same as the colors found in the left-most color list above. Read on below for more details about colors and tracked changes. How to change the name shown in new tracked changes you make As explained above, the name shown in tracked changes you make is determined by the current user name set up on your computer.

Enter values in the User Name and Initials fields. How to change the user name in existing tracked changes Once you have made tracked changes, there is no built-in method in Word to change the author name to another name. How to remove the name from existing tracked changes As explained above , Word has no built-in method to change the author name of existing tracked changes except from using the tools to remove personal information.

Only tracked changes added by reviewers with a check mark will be shown. Compare or combine Word documents Word lets you compare two documents to find the differences between the documents no matter whether the individual documents include tracked changes.

You can use the feature no matter whether the documents already contain tracked changes. See Figure 17 below. In the Compare Documents dialog box, select the original document and the revised document either from the two lists or by using the browse buttons besides the lists.

Below Comparison settings , turn on check boxes as desired to specify which types of changes you want to be marked in addition to insertions and deletions, if any.

Below Show changes , select whether to show changes at character level or word level. See the examples in Figure 18 below. One the Review tab, tap Delete , and then do one of the following:. Tap Delete All to delete all comments in the document.

Table of contents. Next: Use Word for school. Anytime someone adds a comment, it'll show up in a balloon. Turn tracked changes on or off When tracked changes are turned on, Word marks any changes made by any authors of the document. Open the document that you want to edit. Tips: Each reviewer's changes are displayed in a different color.

Turn on Track Changes You can set Word for the Web to track changes for all users who are collaborating on the document or to track just your changes. In the Track Changes drop-down list, do one of the following: To track only the changes you make to the document, select Just Mine. In the Track Changes drop-down list, select Off. Review, accept, or reject changes You can review each tracked change in sequence and decide whether to accept or reject the change.

Click or tap at the beginning of the document. In the Display for Review list, tap the option you want: All Markup inline shows the final document with tracked changes visible inline No markup shows the final document without tracked changed Original shows the original document with no tracked changes Show tracked changes by type Word for iPad On the Review tab, tap the Display for Review icon.

In the Show Markup list, tap the option you want: Ink shows or hides any marks made by digital inking in the document. Show tracked changes by reviewer Word for iPad If there are multiple reviewers for the document, Word will show all changes by default. In the Show Markup list, tap Reviewers. Accept changes Word for iPad Tap twice on a change in the document to select it.

Tap Accept All to accept all changes in the document. Reject changes Word for iPad Tap twice on a change in the document to select it. Tap Reject All to reject all changes in the document. Delete comments Word for iPad Tap twice on a comment in the document to select it. Tap the Delete icon to delete the comment or press and hold the Delete icon until the Delete list appears, and then do one of the following: Tap Delete to delete only the selected comment.

Tap the option you want: All Markup inline shows the final document with tracked changes visible inline No markup shows the final document without tracked changed Original shows the original document with no tracked changes Show tracked changes by type Word for iPhone On the Review tab, tap Display for Review.

Show tracked changes by reviewer Word for iPhone If there are multiple reviewers for the document, Word will show all changes by default. Tap Reviewers. Accept changes Word for iPhone Tap twice on a change in the document to select it. Reject changes Word for iPhone Tap twice on a change in the document to select it.

Delete comments Word for iPhone Tap twice on a comment in the document to select it. One the Review tab, tap Delete , and then do one of the following: Tap Delete to delete only the selected comment. Need more help? Join the discussion. Was this information helpful? Yes No. Thank you! Any more feedback?

The more you tell us the more we can help. Can you help us improve? Resolved my issue. Clear instructions. Easy to follow. No jargon. Pictures helped. Didn't match my screen. Incorrect instructions. Too technical. Not enough information. Not enough pictures.

Any additional feedback? Submit feedback. Thank you for your feedback! Display tracked changes in the body of the document instead of in balloons. Clear the Use balloons to display changes check box. Hide the reviewer's name and the time and date stamp in balloons. Clear the Include reviewer, time stamp, and action buttons check box. Change the color and other formatting that Word uses to identify changes. Indicate deletions without displaying the text that was deleted. Change the color that Word uses to mark changes that are made to table cells.

Under Changes , select Next. Under Changes , select Previous.