This tutorial shows how to use Track Changes in Microsoft Word.
[Typewriter sounds]
Hello, my name is Erin.
I’m a technical writer and editor who shares step-by-step software tutorials and writing tips for the real world
on this channel and on my blog at erinwrightwriting.com.
Today’s tutorial shows how to use Track Changes in Microsoft Word.
Track Changes helps us track our own edits and those created by other users.
Word calls these edits markups.
The term Track Changes is commonly used for both edits and comments, so this tutorial also includes Word’s comment tool.
We're going to cover nine topics.
How to turn Track Changes on and off.
How to show and hide Track Changes.
How to delete, insert, and replace text with Track Changes.
How to change formatting with Track Changes.
How to accept or reject Track Changes.
How to insert Comments.
How to reply to and resolve Comments.
How to delete Comments.
And, how to open and close the Reviewing Pane.
There are multiple ways to perform each of these tasks.
To conserve time, we’ll focus on the methods I believe are the most useful for the majority of users.
I’ll be using Word for Microsoft 365.
These steps will also work for Word 2019, Word 2016, and Word 2013.
However, your interface may look slightly different in those older versions of the software.
If you prefer to see an older interface, please see my previous tutorial of the same name which was filmed on Word 2016.
It is linked in the description box below.
To turn Track Changes on, select the Review tab in the ribbon.
Then select the Track Changes button in the Tracking group.
The button will appear darker than the rest of the ribbon when Track Changes is turned on.
When you’re ready to turn off tracking, reselect the Track Changes button.
You may notice that turning off Track Changes does not hide or remove existing tracking.
It just means that the software will stop tracking future changes.
I’m going to turn my Track Changes back on to complete the tutorial.
To choose how edits and comments are displayed, select the Display for Review drop-down menu.
The options are Simple Markup, All Markup, No Markup, and Original.
Simple Markup displays the edited version of the content without visible in-line edits.
However, edits are indicated by a vertical line in the left margin.
For example, if you delete a sentence, that sentence won’t appear on screen.
Instead, a vertical line will appear in the left margin showing that a change was made in that location.
If you want to see the edit, select the vertical line to switch to All Markup.
All Markup displays all edits and comments.
This view is best for most copyediting and proofreading work.
A vertical line, like the one shown in Simple Markup, will appear on the left side of the screen
indicating that a change was made in that location.
Select that line to switch to Simple Markup.
No Markup displays the edited version of the content without any visible edits or comments.
And, Original displays the original version of the content without any edits or comments.
To choose what features Track Changes displays, select the Show Markup drop-down menu.
I recommend displaying all comments, insertions and deletions, and formatting.
You can further finetune the appearance of your tracking by selecting the Balloon menu.
Here, I recommend choosing Show Only Comments and Formatting in Balloons
so that your insertions and deletions will appear in the text.
Lastly, you can choose Specific People if you are working with multiple reviewers but want to limit tracking to specific people.
I’ll be using the All Markup view for the remainder of this tutorial.
To delete text, select the text and then press the Delete key on your keyboard.
The deleted text will appear with a strikethrough in the All Markup view.
To insert text, place your cursor where the text should appear and then type the new text.
The insertion will appear with an underline.
To replace text, select the text and then type the replacement.
The original text will appear with a strikethrough, and the replacement text will appear with an underline.
Formatting includes things like font style,
font size,
font color,
italics,
bold font,
underlining,
superscripting and subscripting,
indentations,
alignment,
and margins.
To change the formatting with Track Changes, select the text and then change the format.
Track Changes will automatically display the change in a balloon
if you have selected Formatting in the Show Markup section of the Tracking group
and selected “Show Only Comments and Formatting in Balloons.”
Edits created with Track Changes must be accepted before they become part of your document.
You can accept or reject edits individually or all at once.
To accept or reject an individual edit, click on or select it.
Then select the Accept or Reject button in the Changes group.
Now we’ll look at how to accept or reject all edits.
Please note that I strongly caution against accepting or rejecting all edits without first checking the accuracy of each one
unless they are all your own edits or you are very confident in your other reviewers’ expertise.
To accept or reject all edits, select the Accept or Reject menu arrow in the Changes group.
Then, select your preferred option:
Accept or Reject All Changes
or Accept or Reject All Changes and Stop Tracking.
Remember that if you accidently accept or reject all edits,
you can reverse the process by immediately pressing Ctrl + Z on your keyboard
or selecting the Undo button at the top of your screen.
Now we’ll look at how to insert comments.
You can use the Comment tool with Track Changes turned on or turned off.
To begin, select the text you want to connect to the comment.
Alternately, you can place your cursor anywhere you want the comment to be connected without selecting specific text.
Then, select the New Comment button in the Comments group.
Your cursor will automatically move into the comment balloon where you can type your comment.
You can reply to other reviewers’ comments or your own comments.
You can also indicate that the issue discussed in the comment has been resolved.
When a comment is resolved it will be grayed out but will still visible.
To begin, select the comment to make the Reply and Resolve buttons visible.
If you choose Reply, your cursor will move into a new comment balloon where you can type your reply.
If you chose Resolve, the comment will be grayed out.
Once a comment is resolved, you can select Reopen if you want to return it to unresolved state.
You can delete comments individually or all at once.
To delete an individual comment, select the comment balloon.
And then select the Delete button in the Comments group or the Reject button in the Changes group.
To delete all comments, select the Delete button menu arrow in the Comments group.
Then select Delete All Comments in Document from the drop-down menu.
To open the Reviewing Pane, select the Reviewing Pane button in the Tracking group.
The Reviewing Pane, which is labeled Revisions,
shows all the comments and edits selected in the Show Markup drop-down menu in the Tracking group in the ribbon,
along with the total number of those comments and markups in the document.
The Reviewing Pane isn’t necessary for using Track Changes,
but it can be helpful when you need to find a specific edit or want to see how many edits or comments are in the document.
The Reviewing Pane will normally appear on the left side of your screen.
However, you can select the Reviewing Pane menu arrow and select Reviewing Pane Horizontal, if you prefer.
When you’re finished, select the Reviewing Pane button again to close the pane.
As always, remember to save your file to save your tracking and other changes.
I have created many other videos about Microsoft Word,
including “How to Change the Color of Track Changes in Microsoft Word,”
and “How to Remove User Names from Existing Track Changes in Microsoft Word.”
Please see the complete list in the playlist titled “How to Use Microsoft Word,” which is linked in the description box below.
The companion blog post for this video showing all the steps we just performed
appears on erinwrightwriting.com, which is also linked below.
Feel free to leave me a comment if there’s a specific topic related to Microsoft Word, Adobe Acrobat, or Google Docs
that you would like me to talk about in the future.
And please subscribe to my channel so you don’t miss future tutorials.
And give this video a thumbs-up if you found it helpful.
Thank you so much for watching!
[Typewriter sounds]