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Wouldn't it be great if you could quickly see what changes have been made to a Microsoft Word document? With Word's Track Changes feature, you can.
Track Changes lets you indicate what changes have been made to a document. Any deleted text is shown with a line running through it (strikethrough). Inserted text is underlined. Any line that contains a change is marked with a vertical line in the margin, so you can quickly scan through a document to find changes. Figure 1 shows an example of a document with revision marks.
Figure 1: A document with tracked revisions.
To track changes to a document while editing the document, turn on the Track Changes feature before you begin editing your document. Then Word keeps track of revisions as you make them. You can then print the document with or without the changes, and you can later accept or reject the changes.
Turning on Track Changes
Follow these steps to track changes:
1. Choose Tools --> Track Changes.
The Reviewing toolbar appears and Word begins tracking your changes.
2. If you do not want the change marks to appear onscreen while you edit the document, choose Final in the Display for Review drop-down list.
Normally change marks appear onscreen as you type, which can be confusing, so you may want to switch to Final display. As long as Track Changes is still turned on, Word continues tracking your changes even though it doesn't display the revision marks.
3. Proceed!
Now you can feel free to edit the document to pieces.
 | To disable the tracking of changes, click the Track Changes button on the Reviewing toolbar. Think about turning off Track Changes to correct a simple and obvious typographical error that doesn't need to be highlighted by a revision mark. Then turn revision marking back on again. |
You can quickly activate Track Changes by double-clicking the letters TRK in the status bar.
You can change the way to display changes by choosing Tools --> Options and clicking the Track Changes tab. The dialog box that appears enables you to set the colors to display insertions, deletions, formatting changes, and the vertical bar displayed next to changed lines. You can also control whether balloons highlight comments and editing.
Accepting or rejecting changes
When you have accumulated a bunch of tracked changes, sooner or later you have to accept or reject the revisions. If you accept the changes, the revisions are permanently incorporated into the document, and the change marks are removed. If you reject the changes, the document reverts to its previous state and the revisions are deleted along with the change marks.
To accept or reject all of the changes to a document in one swift stroke, follow these steps:
1. Summon the Reviewing toolbar.
Choose View --> Toolbars --> Reviewing to display this toolbar.
2. Click the arrow next to the Accept Change button, and then choose Accept All Changes in Document.
The changes are accepted.
Skim through your document to confirm that changes have indeed been accepted or rejected as you intended. It should be obvious.
If you have second thoughts, press Ctrl+Z. The revision marks are restored.
| If you prefer to work your way through the changes one at a time, accepting or rejecting each one on its own merits, use the Next Change or Previous Change buttons on the Reviewing toolbar to move to the next or previous change, and then click the Accept Change or Reject Change button, depending on what you think of the change. |
Change marks accumulate in a document until you either accept or reject them. You can collect a set of revision marks over a period of days or weeks and then deal with them all at once by accepting or rejecting them.
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