Keeping Track in Microsoft Word

By Gail Van Landingham

Sometimes I forget where I parked my car. I walk up and down the aisles in the parking lot, pushing a cart full of groceries, hoping the ice cream won't melt, and trying to look like I know where I'm going. So believe me, I appreciate a tracking tool when I see one. Like the Track Changes feature in Microsoft Word.

Using Track Changes, you can keep track of every bit of text you add or delete. Then you can walk through each change, and decide which changes you want to keep, reject, or change again.

In Word 2003, Microsoft added a lot of options and new tools for reviewing documents. The changes to Track Changes have baffled a few users at my company. Last week, I received two calls from managers asking how to turn off the change marks in their documents. I told them about the Reviewing toolbar. More on that in a minute.

Some common uses for Track Changes

Showing the differences from the last released version

Suppose you finish a formal released document, and now you want to start on a new revision and send it out for review. You turn on Track Changes and start editing the document. Each change you make is marked. Your reviewers can see the new text, and they don't have to review the text that didn't change. People at my company seem to like this.

Getting comments from reviewers

You can e-mail a single document out to several reviewers, and ask them to send their edits back to you. Then you can decide which of their edits you want to incorporate.

Learning your way around

Getting to know the Reviewing toolbar

To get started, take a look at the Reviewing toolbar. I'd recommend docking the Reviewing toolbar whenever you're working in a document with tracked changes.

Click View > point to Toolbars > select Reviewing.
The toolbar pops up automatically when you turn on Track Changes.

The Display for Review field

Click the arrow in the Display for Review field (the field that displays "Final Showing Markup" as a default). The options include:

Option	What it shows	How insertions and deletions are shown
Final Showing Markup	All comments and tracked changes	Insertions are inside the document, and deletions are shown in balloons.
Final	How the document would look if you accepted all the changes.	Not shown.
Original Showing Markup	All comments and tracked changes.	Deletions are strikethroughs within the document, and insertions are shown in balloons.
Original	The original document, with no comments or tracked changes.	Not shown.

Did you notice the difference between "Final Showing Markup" and "Original Showing Markup"? No difference at all...unless you're using the new Balloons feature.

The Show button

With the Show button on the Reviewing toolbar, you get another set of options for viewing the changes:

If you don't like one of the features, say the balloons, clear the checkbox for it.

Setting options for how Track Changes looks

On the Reviewing toolbar, click Show, and click Options.

Word provides a lot of choices for you. You can do some fine-tuning on:

Balloons: Select a preferred width.
Insertions (added text): Underline is standard. You can change it to bold, double-underline, italic, or color only.
Deletions (removed text): Strikethrough is standard. You can change it to hidden text-or any of the same options for added text.

Turning on Track Changes

My favorite shortcut is to double-click the TRK button in the status bar.

Tip: You can also click Track Changes on the Tools menu.

Resolving individual changes

Start at the top of the document (press Ctrl+Home).
Click Next on the Reviewing toolbar.
Word goes to the next tracked change in the document.
Do one of the following:

To accept the change, click the Accept Change button.
To reject the change, click the Reject Change button.

Repeat these steps until you have resolved all changes.

Note: You don't have to accept all the changes at the same time. You can leave some changes until you get the information you need.

Resolving ALL changes at the same time

Suppose you know that you want to accept all the changes in the document, without viewing them one at a time. In this case:

Start at the top of the document (press Ctrl+Home).
Click the arrow next to the Accept Change button on the Reviewing toolbar.
Choose Accept All Changes in Document.

A recommendation: Periodically clear all tracked changes

Periodically, resolve and clear all tracked changes.

I knew an engineer who continued to add tracked changes over several months. He printed copies of his document with all the tracked changes for reviewers at each review meeting. By the time a few months had passed, his document had so much strikethrough and underlined text that it was impossible to read.