Using “Track Changes” in Microsoft Word.

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to Ron Evans <revansca@yahoo.com>

Technical Writing & Training Development by Ron A. Evans

Contents:
Managing the ‘Track Changes’ Mode......................................................................1
Turning the ‘Track Changes’ Mode On and Off .....................................................1
Selecting Edit Colors and Styles..............................................................................2
Making Changes.......................................................................................................3
Inserting Comments.................................................................................................4
Using Protection.......................................................................................................4
Creating a Final Document......................................................................................4
If you are not seeing a 2” wide right margin and a red Comment box,
you do not have an original document. Email me for an original.

Managing the ‘Track Changes’ Mode

The first two things to learn about the ‘Track Changes’ feature of Microsoft Word are (1) how to manage
the viewing mode and (2) how to turn Track Changes off to make it inactive!
You’ve just received a Word document from someone and you notice two things; the right-hand margin is
abnormally large, as we have here, and there are edits showing in the document including comment boxes
in the right hand margin. What has happened is the document has automatically opened in ‘Final Showing
Markup’ mode and all you want to do is read the document, so, first, here’s how to get out of the Final
Showing Markup view mode and also get out of ‘Track Changes’ mode.
In the Toolbars area you will see the Reviewing toolbar which looks like this. Final Showing Markup is indicated in
the window to the left of the Show drop down menu. The four view modes are: Final, Final Showing Mark Up,
Original or Original Showing Mark Up.

(The “Reviewing” toolbar may be located in a different position in the Toolbars area than is show here.)

By selecting mousing (pointing your mouse at) the drop down

arrow, select “Final”.

Now you should be viewing the document without the

expanded right-hand margin and with all edit highlights
removed.

For the most part you will want to work in Final Showing Mark Up view mode but need to keeping checking
what the document looks like in Final view mode. Following the steps in this training document will make
you familiar with doing this. Later, you’ll see how to use the ‘Track Changes’ mode when creating a Word
document and also how to set the document so that it doesn’t open up in the ‘Final Showing Markup’ mode,
which you need to be able to do for your final version document.
Turning the ‘Track Changes’ Mode On and Off
To manage the “Track Changes” mode, making it active or inactive, select Tools at the top of the screen
and then select ‘Track Changes’ from the drop down menu. As is noted to the right on the drop down
menu, the shortcut keyboard control is Ctrl+shift+E.
Using keyboard control can be faster than using the mouse for toggling in and out of the ‘Track Changes’
mode, which you may want to do even in the middle of editing a document. For example, you have to exit
‘Track Changes’ mode to remove a page break in a document.
When you select ‘Track Changes’ the Tool Bar with the appropriate options will appear.

The window on the left shows which view mode is selected:

Final, Final Showing Mark Up, Original or Original Showing Mark Up.
As you will see, you will want to work in Final Showing Mark Up view mode but need to keeping checking
what the document looks like in Final view mode. Following the steps in this training document will make
you familiar with doing this.

Verify that the following options are checked in the Show drop down menu.
Final, Comments, Ink Annotations, Insertions and Deletions, and Formatting.

Now, as a test, type some text here:

If the text appears blue then you are in active ‘Track Changes’ mode.
If the text is not blue, use Ctrl+shift+E to get into active ‘Track Changes’ mode and automatically change
the viewing mode to “Final Showing Mark Up“ view mode. Use Ctrl+shift+E again to get out of active ‘Track
Changes’ mode, but this does not automatically return the viewing mode to “Final“ view mode.
This text has been
added and then
deleted just to cause
the page break to
shift.Change the
viewing mode to
Final to see the
difference in the
page layout!!
Selecting Edit Colors and Styles
The next thing to do before committing to any significant amount of editing is to select your colors and
styles that will identify changes that you make.
This is done using the Track Changes screen (shown on the next page).
• To access this screen (shown on the next page), click on the Show drop down menu and select
Options.
When you change a color selection or a markup option and click OK, then these become a visible indication of
edits you have made. The Reviewing Pane can be used as a way of identifying who made a particular change.

In the example shown here:

− blue has been selected for Inserts (added
text),
− red for Deletions,
− green for Formatting comments,
− black for Changed Lines, and
− red for inserted Comments (Alt/I/M).
Choosing the same color for all options is
the best approach when multiple
reviewers/ editors are involved. There are
more than ten color choices!
When using the same color for both text
changes and for deletions, deletions need
to be differentiated from inserted (added)
text by having Strikethrough selected.

Other option changes that can be made using the Track Changes screen are:
• Balloon options • Position
• Preferred width of the comment text box • Paper orientation for printing

Making Changes
To make changes to an existing document, with active ‘Track Changes’ mode on, overtype misspellings or
words you want to replace; insert and type text you want to add; highlight and delete (backspace or delete
keys) to remove unwanted text.
When you are in “Final Showing Mark Up“ view mode, an edited paragraph will end up looking like this
(must be in “Final Showing Mark Up” view mode to see!! – select “Final Showing Mark Up“ if you don’t see
any edits in the following paragraph):
• To make changes edits to an existing document, with active ‘Track Changes’ mode on, overtype
mispellings misspellings or words you want to replace, and use the insert ‘insert’ key and type text
you want to add, highlight and delete (or backspace or ‘delete’) to remove unwanted text.

• Note the indicator bar in the left margin on any line where a change has been made. This is
particularly useful when only a small change has been made. If you make formatting changes you
will see comment boxes in the right margin, just like the one seen here (which you won’t see unless
 you’re in “Final Showing Mark Up“ view mode.)
To see what the page/document looks like with all of your edits made, and without the extra wide margin
on the right, select the “Final” view mode. You will need to do this occasionally to see what each page
really looks like since the old and markup texts are side-by-side.
• Toggle between “Final Showing Mark Up“ and “Final“ view modes and you’ll see how edits in “Final Showing
Mark Up“ view mode affect page breaks of previous pages, this page and later pages.

Inserting Comments
Inserting comments is done by highlighting a word, sentence or paragraph and using either mouse to
select the Insert drop down menu at the top of the screen and then selecting Comment, or by using the
shortcut keyboard command Alt/I/M.
The next useful tool to explore is the Insert Comment ( ) tool. With the Insert Comment tool, by simply
highlighting a character, word or string of words, you can add a comment, such as a suggestion, in a
comment box. Here is an example of a comment.
The Reviewing Pane can be opened from the Track Changes” tool bar by clicking on the icon.

To close the Reviewing Pane, click on the icon again. Alternatively, you can grab the top bar of the
Reviewing Pane window and drag it downwards to eliminate it. Equally well the window can be expanded
if you want to see more edit entries in a single view.

As stated earlier, remember to select view Final mode from time-to-time to review layout
and to verify that page breaks are occurring where they should be.

Using Protection
You can control who is allowed to make changes to your document by using protection (Protect Document).
Protect Document is found under the Tools drop-down menu at the top of the screen. In general, you’ll want
to:
- set for Tracked Changes only
- use password control
- give the password only to key people.

Creating a Final Document

Having used the ‘Track Changes’ feature of Microsoft Word, when you send out a document it will
automatically open in the “Final Showing Mark Up“ view mode. This can be confusing for people who aren’t
involved in the edit process, so here are three solutions that you can use to get around this problem.
1. Accept all changes and remove all inserted comments
2. Use Copy-and-Paste
3. Create a PDF
Make sure you are in “Final“ view mode and do a final review before creating your final document.

1. Select the drop-down arrow for Accept Changes on the ‘Track Changes’ Tool Bar.
 There are three options; Accept Change, Accept All Changes Shown and Accept All Changes in document.
If you have attended to all Comments and taken action including removing all Comments, selecting
Accept All Changes in document will release the document from being in ‘Track Changes’ mode.
Comments, if short, are best removed by turning Track Changes off (Ctrl+shift+E), and simply retyping
as necessary to copy the text that has been highlighted, and then deleting the highlighted text which
also deletes the Comment box. If an entire paragraph has been highlighted, the method I use is I copy
and paste the entire paragraph into Notepad which removes all formatting, and then copy and paste it
from Notepad back to the Word document, reformat as necessary duplicating the highlighted
paragraph which can then be deleted. When the last Comment is removed, select Final view mode and
Save the document.
2. Create a new document by “copy and paste” into a new Word document (Alt/F/N); which can be faster
than removing lots of individual comments. This method is also useful for creating a copy as a
preliminary draft that needs to be sent for review to individuals who don’t need to see changes, edits
and comments.
In Final view mode, use “Select All” (Alt/E/L) to select all of the text and graphics (if any) in your
document. Next copy using the Edit drop down menu from the top of the screen and then selecting
Copy, or by using either the shortcut keyboard command Ctrl+C or the shortcut keyboard command
Alt/C/C. Next, in the new document that you have opened, paste (Ctrl+V or Alt/E/P) to transfer the
document contents into the new document. Save the document (Save As) using a non-conflicting
filename, e.g. Filename – Final. Verify the layout paying attention to page breaks making adjustments if
needed.
3. Create a PDF from the Word document. A free PDF converter is available from www.pdf995.com if
you don’t have Adobe Acrobat. (Acrobat Reader from Adobe is also a free download allowing PDF
documents to be opened and viewed.
Please send comments about this document
to Ron Evans <revansca@yahoo.com>