The most detailed guide to using Track Changes in Word

Track Changes is a feature that helps record your edits in a Word document. This feature is especially useful for documents with multiple authors. In this article, we will learn how to use Track Changes in Word.

How to enable Track Changes

First, open the Word document you need to edit. To enable Track Changes, click Review >> Track Changes.

When Track Changes enabled, you’ll see the feature’s icon in bold as follows:

Then you proceed to edit the document as usual. Changes will be formatted with red text, with a dash mark in the margin.

Also, if you delete some old text, that part will be crossed out. Thanks to that, you will not be confused with the new text.

You can click the vertical dash in the margin to temporarily hide the old section. Only the edited part remains. The color now also changes back to black as usual.

Agree/reject changes

If someone else uses Track Changes to make changes to your document, you may agree or reject the change. To do this, right-click on the changed text.

In the menu that appears, select “Accept” – Agree, or “Reject” – Reject.

After pressing Accept, the new text will be replaced. On the contrary, if you choose Reject, the old text will be preserved and the new text will be lost.

If you want to Agree to all changes, open Review >> Accept >> Accept All Changes.

Similarly, if you want to reject all changes, open Review >> Reject >> Reject All Changes.

Change Track Changes settings

Track Changes has some settings of its own, which you can change to suit your workflow.

First, you click arrow button (expanded) in the Tracking.

Now a Track Changes Options window will appear with the options displayed in the Show section. This is where you choose which elements you want to show or hide while using Track Changes.

For even more advanced settings, select Advanced Options.

In the next dialog box, you can make advanced settings about the color and how to highlight the changes. Customize to your liking to get the best Track Changes interface.

When you’re done, remember press OK to save changes.

Choose a Markup Style

When using Track Changes, you can change the Markup style to hide or show your changes on the text.

You click on the Markup section in the Tracking box so that the options appear. If you choose All Markup, all changes will be highlighted on the text.

If you choose No Markup, you will see that the document shows only the changed text, no stale text.

Simple Markup shows only the new text, and also marks the change with a vertical dash in the margin. Besides, Original show only the first text of the document.

You can also choose which Markup elements are shown by choosing Show Markup, and then selecting or deselecting:

• Comments: Show comments
• Insertions and Deletions: Show added and removed sections
• Balloons: Show to the right
• Specific people: Show editor

See the changes in another window

View changes in another window will create a changelist for you to easily capture what has been done.

You click on Reviewing Pane in the Tracking box, then select Reviewing Pane Vertical (View in portrait)… or Reviewing Pane Horizontal… (View in landscape format.

If you choose Reviewing Pane Vertical, a Revisions window will appear in the vertical margin of the document. Here you capture the specifics of the changes that have been made.

The above article has guided you to use Track Changes to record revision logs on documents. Hope this feature will help you to have a more scientific and effective working method. Good luck!