Tag Archives for " editing "

After you've redlined a document using Track Changes (and maybe even inserted some comments and printed some review copies) you'll need to accept or reject the various marked changes in order to finalize the document.  Here's how.

First, get all the changes visible by choosing Final Showing Markup on the Review tab (versions 2007 and 2010) or All Markup in versions 2013 & 2016:

(Wait - you don't see that on your screen? Go to the Review tab and click the drop-down shown above.)

Now, turn Track Changes off.  In Word 2007 and up, you can either go back to the Review tab and click Track Changes to turn it off:

... or you can toggle it off at the Status Bar (you did fix your Status Bar, right?):

If you're just going to accept all changes in the document, then this is easy-peasy.  Just click the drop-down next to the Accept button with the check-mark and choose Accept All Changes in Document:

Similarly, if you're going to reject all the changes, use the button with the red "X" mark and do the same thing:

If you're going to accept some changes but reject others, it's a little (but not much more) complicated.

What if you (or your attorney) don't want to actually change a particular section of a document, but just want to ask a question, point out a problem, just plain make a comment?  Word's Track Changes feature can help you do that.

You'll remember the trust Track Changes toolbar (Word 2002-2003) and Review tab (Word 2007 and above) from our previous lesson:

See that button that looks like a sticky note or a speech bubble?  That's the Insert Comment button.

Just place your cursor where you want to insert the comment and click New Comment.  You'll get a balloon out to the side - just start typing your comment there, and click outside of it when you're finished.

What you'll end up with looks like this:

Notice, too, that this same button allows you to edit previous comments and delete them. In the later Ribbon-based versions of Word, there's also a way to respond to comments left by others and to mark them "resolved".

As with everything to do with Track Changes, be sure you've removed all comments before sending a document via email (unless you're distributing it for someone to review the comments).  One of the best ways to do that is to use Document Inspector to clean out all metadata (which will accept all Track Changes revisions and remove all comments in the process).

If you have any questions about ensuring that no tracked changes or comments are saved in documents being distributed outside your firm, please contact your firm's systems administrator or IT person.

Once you know how to turn on Word's Track Changes feature, you may want to be able to see the document in its original state and with all the changes without having to accept or reject changes (or what I often hear referred to as a "clean" copy).  Here's an easy way to do that (with some caveats):

After all, it would be convenient, wouldn't it, to be able to print the document in its "final form" without losing your redline?

Briefly, if you want to show (and print) the document in what would be its final version (without having to accept all the changes and lose your revision history), this is the choice you'd make in the Markup dropdown in the Track Changes area of the Review tab:

Caveat: Don't confuse hiding the redlining with accepting/rejecting the changes. Those are not the same thing.  If you plan to email the document, please be sure that all changes have been accepted or rejected and all comments deleted. You can use Word's Document Inspector or check with your systems administrator or IT person and ask if your firm has what's called a "metadata cleaner."  This will keep the document from saving any hidden changes that might prove embarrassing to you or your firm.

If you want to be able to track what changes have been made to a document, then you want to use the Word feature called (big surprise here) Track Changes.

Here's a little tutorial on how to turn on Track Changes in Word (both the menu-based versions 2002 and 2003 and the Ribbon versions 2007 and up), plus some notes about the feature's little quirks you'll want to watch out for.

Track Changes makes it easy to figure out what's changed in a document since the last draft, since turning it on automatically redlines the document as you type.

To turn Track Changes on, go to the Tools menu and click on Track Changes:

This will bring up the Track Changes toolbar:

Notice that the icon second from the right looks like it's been pressed and has distinct lines around it.  That indicates that Track Changes is on.   Here's how it looks when Track Changes is turned off:

See the difference?

To turn on Track Changes in the Ribbon-based versions of Word, go to the Review tab, click on Track Changes, then click Track Changes:

But here's the easiest way to turn on Track Changes (assuming you have your Status Bar all pimped out): just toggle it on with one click here:

You'll really see the difference once you start typing:

And there's also the tip-off at the bottom of the screen, in the Status Bar (you'll see "TRK" lit up in versions 2002-2003 and "Track Changes: On" in the Ribbon-based versions).

There are a few things to keep in mind with Track Changes: