On the left of the Tracking section, the large button called Track Changes has two sections. Click the top to turn on Track Changes. Any deletions, additions, or edits you make with this button selected will be marked in some way and can be placed in a balloon at the side of the page, if you choose to do so. You and other users can add and delete text and make changes normally, and Word will keep track of it all.

Change Views

After other users have made their changes to a document, you might want to adjust how you view changes. At some point, a document may become nearly unreadable because of all the marks on it. Click the Display For Review drop-down list in the upper right of the Tracking section and choose Final from the list. This shows you the document as though all of the changes were accepted. The marked changes are still there and marks will continue to be made, but they are hidden. To go back to viewing the tracked changes, click Final Showing Markup. View the document as it originally appeared by clicking Original. View the original text with tracked changes visible by choosing Original Showing Markup.

Another display issue is whether to show balloons, and if so, what to show inside them. Click the Balloons button to make changes in their behavior. Choose Show All Revisions Inline to not use balloons at all. If you want balloons to appear on screen next to the document, use Show Revisions In Balloon. Finally, choose Show Only Comments And Formatting In Balloons to restrict balloon contents to those two items.

Click the Reviewing Pane button and choose either Reviewing Pane Vertical or Reviewing Pane Horizontal, whichever looks best on your monitor. This pane provides an overview of your changes and quick links to them in the document. (It also includes information about comments.) You can accept or reject changes from within the Reviewing Pane by right-clicking them and then making the appropriate choice from the context-sensitive menu.

Finally, click the bottom part of the Track Changes button and choose Change Tracking Option to bring up a large dialog box that lets you change the appearance of the changes you make, and whether certain behaviors, such as balloons, are turned on or off.

Sort Through Changes

The last item in the Tracking group is the Show Markup button. This provides two functions: You can determine which types of changes you want to see, as well as whose changes you want to see. The selection Ink applies to Ink Annotations, a feature that is available for Word users who have access to a drawing tablet or are using a Tablet PC. The Markup Area Highlight shows the document area in white and the Markup Area in a light gray. The Reviewers list lets you determine whose changes are visible.

Once you choose a particular reviewer, you can then go through his or her proposed changes. Use the Changes section buttons to accept or reject each change individually. Note that the Accept and Reject buttons have two parts; clicking the top part simply accepts or rejects the current change, while clicking the bottom part lets you do that as well as move to the next change, or accept or reject all changes. The Previous and Next buttons simply move you from one proposed change to another.

It’s a good idea to use the Reviewing Pane as the last thing you do before submitting the document in its final form. Remember that changing views does not accept or reject changes. You must do that yourself. Leaving in a tracked change could be embarrassing to the reviewer or receiver of the document

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