Applies to |
Microsoft Office Word 2003 Microsoft Word
2002 |
You receive a document in an e-mail message
from your colleague. It would make a good starting
point for a document that you want to work on, so
you save it under a new name and tailor it to your
needs. It never occurs to you that your colleague
left comments in the original document, because
you don't see them in your copy. You're now ready
to pass the document along to your customers, but
you want to send them your document, not an
accumulation of the original document, your
colleague's comments, and your updates.
Or, you used the Track Changes feature in Word
to keep track of the revisions you made to your
resume. Now you want to send the resume to your
prospective employer, who should see the
result of your editing, not the thought
process you went through to get there.
In either case, you are stunned when those who
receive your document report that it's difficult
to read, with all the strikethrough, underlining,
and balloons off to the side. Look! There's the
objective statement in your resume, with three
different objectives displayed in strikeout
formatting—and the objective you want to use this
time around is displayed in underlined text.
Chances are you won't get that job.
This text wasn't in the document when you sent
it. How did Word find and display this content?
What can you do to make Word behave?
Understanding the Track Changes feature
You may not realize it, but you are working
with the Track Changes or Comments feature in
Word. Typically, when Word tracks changes, it
displays deletions with strikethrough formatting
and insertions as underlined text. Both deletions
and insertions—as well as comments (or
"annotations")—can be displayed in balloons in the
page margin.
There are various ways to hide the revisions or
comments—but all the revisions that were made
while the Track Changes feature was turned on and
all the comments that were inserted remain part of
the document until they are accepted or rejected
(or, in the case of comments, deleted).
Note Turning off Track
Changes does not remove the revision marks or
comments from the document. Instead, turning off
Track Changes enables you to modify the document
without storing insertions and deletions and
displaying them as strikethrough, underlining, or
balloons.
How do I get rid of my revisions?
To get rid of tracked changes and comments, you
need to accept or reject the changes and delete
the comments. Here's how:
- On the View menu, point to
Toolbars, and then click Reviewing.
- On the Reviewing toolbar,
click Show, and then make sure
that a check mark appears next to each of the
following items:
Comments
Ink Annotations (Word 2003 only)
Insertions and Deletions
Formatting
Reviewers (Point to Reviewers
and make sure that All Reviewers
is selected.)
If a check mark does not appear next to an
item, click the item to select it.
- On the Reviewing toolbar,
click Next to advance from one
revision or comment to the next.
- On the Reviewing toolbar,
click Accept Change or Reject Change/Delete Comment for
each revision or comment.
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 until all the revisions
in the document have been accepted or rejected
and all the comments have been deleted.
Note If you know that you
want to accept all the changes, click the arrow
next to Accept Change, and then
click Accept All Changes in
Document. If you know that you want to reject
all the changes, click the arrow next to Reject Change/Delete Comment, and
then click Reject All Changes in
Document. To remove all comments, you must
delete them. Click the arrow next to Reject Change/Delete Comment, and
then click Delete All Comments in
Document.
How did those revisions and comments get
there?
You may have thought that you removed the
comments or revisions, or you may have received
the document from someone else without realizing
that it contained comments or revisions. How does
Word store these items without you being aware of
them?
You or the person who sent the document may
have hidden the revisions or comments. Hiding them
does not remove them, however; they remain in the
document. Depending on your version of Word and
the settings you are using, the revisions or
comments may reappear when you or someone else
opens the document.
If you don't want others to see revisions and
comments, accept or reject the revisions and
delete the comments before you share the document
with others. This is the case no matter which
version of Word you are using, because anyone who
opens the document can easily display existing
revisions or comments.
Note If you use Word 2003,
you are less likely to inadvertently distribute
documents that contain revision marks and
comments, because Word 2003 displays the revisions
and comments by default.
Where revisions and comments may be
hiding
There are several ways to hide revision marks
and comments, which may lead you to think that
they are not in the document.
Note To display the Reviewing toolbar, point to Toolbars on the View
menu, and then click Reviewing.
Display for Review
box On the Reviewing toolbar, the Display for Review box provides four
options for viewing your document. If you select
Final or Original,
revision marks and comments are hidden. To display
the revision marks, select Final
Showing Markup or Original Showing
Markup.
Show menu You
can hide comments and revisions by turning them
off on the Show menu on the Reviewing toolbar. Items that are
marked with a check mark on the Show menu are displayed; items
without a check mark are hidden. To display an
item, such as Insertions and
Deletions, select it on the Show menu.
Option for hiding
markup In Word 2003, the Make hidden markup visible when opening
or saving option may be turned off. To turn on
the option, click Options (Tools menu), and then, on the Security tab, select the Make hidden markup visible when opening
or saving check box.
Why Word 2003 displays revisions and comments
by default
To prevent you from inadvertently distributing
documents that contain revision marks and comments
that you don't realize are in the document, Word
2003 displays revision marks and comments by
default. Word 2003 implements a new option, Make hidden markup visible when opening
or saving, which is turned on by default.
Can I have it both ways?
If you want to preserve revision marks or
comments in a document, and you want to share the
document without others seeing the revisions and
comments, the best solution is to keep separate
copies of the document: one for distribution and
one for yourself. In the public version of the
document, accept or reject all revision marks and
delete all comments, as described in this article.
In the private version of the document, you can
leave the revisions and comments in place. |