Microsoft Word 2007

Working with the Track Changes Feature

Word's tracking and editing features are designed to make collaborative work more efficient. The main feature, Track Changes, records all revisions to a document and notes who made which changes.

The Review Tab Commands
Viewing Options
Inserting Comments
Editing and Deleting Comments
Accepting and Rejecting Changes

The Review Tab Commands

The Review command tab provides quick access to many tracking and editing operations. To access these features, Track Changes must be activated.

Button	Name	Action
	Track Changes	Activates Track Changes features
	Balloons	Shows revisions in balloons in the margins of a document instead of formatting marks within the document
	Display for Review	Specifies the document view. Options include: Final Showing Markup, Final, Original Showing Markup, and Original.
	Show Markup	Specifies which editing features are displayed. Options include: Comments, Ink, Insertions and Deletions, Formatting, Markup Area Highlight, and Reviewers.
	Reviewing Pane	Opens a pane showing revisions; theallows you to choose between a horizontal or vertical layout.
	Previous	Moves to previous change in the document
	Next	Moves to next change in the document
	Accept Change	Accepts a change
	Reject Change	Rejects a change
	New Comment	Adds a comment to the selected area
	Delete Comment	Deletes a comment
	Previous Comment	Moves to previous comment in document
	Next Comment	Move to next comment in document

Viewing Options

While viewing your document, you can select the desired viewing option and the desired Track Changes features.

Open the document to be reviewed

From the Review command tab, in the Tracking group, click DISPLAY FOR REVIEW
NOTE: The Display for Review button is not explicitly labeled on the Ribbon, instead showing only your document's currently selected display (e.g., Final Showing Markup, Final, Original Showing Markup, Original ). It can, however, be identified using ScreenTips by hovering the mouse over the button.

The Display for Review pull-down list appears.

View	Description
Final Showing Markup	Displays the final version of the document with changes noted as markups
Final	Displays the final version of the document with changes; markups are hidden
Original Showing Markup	Displays the text of the original document with changes noted as markups
Original	Displays the text of the original document

From the Review command tab, in the Tracking group, click SHOW MARKUP
The Show Markup pull-down list appears.

Editing Feature	Description
Comments	Shows comments that have been added to the document
Ink	Shows markup created with a stylus tool
Insertions and Deletions	Shows what has been added and deleted from the original document
Formatting	Shows what formatting changes have been made to the document
Markup Area Highlight	Highlights background where changes are shown
Reviewers	Shows which reviewer has made a particular edit or comment

Inserting Comments

Word allows users to insert comments within documents. Comments can be used to guide an author's attention to areas where special attentions is needed.

Select the text to which you want to add a comment
From the Review command tab, in the Comments group, click NEW COMMENT
In the Comment box, type a comment
When finished, click outside the Comment box

Editing and Deleting Comments

Once you add comments, you can edit or delete them. You cannot make changes to comments made by other reviewers.

Editing Comments

Select the comment to be edited
In the Comment box, type your changes
When finished, click outside the Comment box

Deleting Comments

Select the comment to be deleted
From the Review command tab, in the Comments group, click DELETE
The comment is deleted.

Accepting and Rejecting Changes

Accepting and rejecting changes works much like the Spell Check feature. By cycling through the changes made to a document, the author can accept or reject any or all changes.

WARNING: It is critical to perform these steps prior to sharing the final version of your document. If you do not do this, others will be able to turn on Track Changes and see early mistakes and edits.

Open the document to be reviewed
From the Review command tab, in the Changes group, click NEXT
The first change is displayed.
To accept the change, click to top half of the ACCEPT button
To accept all changes, click theon the ACCEPT button » select Accept All Changes in Document
To reject the change, click REJECT
To reject all changes, click theon the REJECT button » select Reject All Changes in Document
Repeat steps 2-3 until all changes/comments have been reviewed
When finished, save your document