Working with Microsoft Word Track Changes (97/2000)

Posted November 01, 2002
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hen you review your sample or final electronic edit, your document will contain "redline markings." These redline markings may also be referred to as Track Changes (so called because the program "tracks" the changes made to a document) and are a method used to edit your manuscript while still maintaining the document's original integrity.

When an editor edits a hard copy or paper manuscript of your book, then proofreader's marks are used. These are very similar to what you see with redline markings; however, they can be a great deal easier to view, understand, and incorporate into your electronic document.

Though you will be able to see these changes, they are not actually a part of your document; in other words, they are not text that has simply been formatted with a color or strikethrough function.

Consider the following: If you were to place a piece of tracing paper over a page of your text and then mark upon the tracing paper, you would still be able to see the original text, but you would not be marking on the original page. This means that if you were to pick up the piece of tracing paper, your document would be as it was. The Track Changes function works much like a piece of tracing paper. This enables you to view the suggested changes, disable them, or accept and reject them into your original document without having to type the changes yourself.

Track Changes can be altered to appear in your document in a number of ways, but most often, they will appear as follows:

Example of additions.
Example of deletions.

You may also see a black, vertical line at the left or right margin of your document. These lines indicate where a change has been made. You may occasionally see a line where no obvious marking exists. This could indicate a change made to the formatting of your manuscript. (Formatting can refer to things such as letter or word spacing, paragraph marks, and Italics versus Roman type.)

Accepting and Rejecting Changes in a Document

This is the main function you will be working with when reviewing an edit of your manuscript. There are two main ways to accept and reject changes.

Option 1. Select Tools >>Track Changes >> Accept or Reject Changes from the menu on your Toolbar.

A window will open, presenting you with the following options:

Accept: Choosing the accept button while an item is highlighted will automatically incorporate the suggested change into your original document.

Reject: Choosing the reject button while an item is highlighted will automatically remove the suggested change from your original document. This is different from simply changing the view. Once removed, you cannot retrieve the change by changing views. It has been removed from the document.

Accept All: Choosing the accept all button will automatically accept all changes into your document. You will not be prompted to view each one and you will no longer be able to differentiate between the editorial markings and your original document.

Reject All: Choosing the reject all button will automatically reject all changes, returning your document to its original state, prior to editing.

Find: The find buttons allow you to search forward and backward throughout the document for changes. These changes will highlight in your document view, allowing you to accept or reject the highlighted change.

Option 2. The second, and perhaps easiest, way to accept and reject changes is to simply find the redline markings, highlight the text, and then right-click over the highlighted area. A menu should appear, which will include an option to accept or reject the change.

The downside to this method is that you must deal with one change at a time; however, if you are already reading back through the entire document (which is always highly recommended), this should be no problem. You can always choose to go back through using the more extensive function later to ensure that you did not miss a change.

Changing Editorial Views in a Document

When you select Tools >> Track Changes >> Accept or Reject Changes from the menu on your Toolbar, the same window that allows you to accept and reject changes will open. Through this window, you will also have the option to change views. (You can preview each view selection, which is presented as a radio button.) The view options are as follows:

View - Changes with highlighting: Selecting this option will allow you to view the document with all Track Changes showing. This means that the suggested changes will appear in red as described above.

View - Changes without highlighting: Selecting this option will allow you to view the document with the suggested changes incorporated into your document. This means that you will not see any redline markings; you will simply see the document as if you had already chosen to accept all of the suggested changes. However, this is simply a view choice. Viewing the document as such does not mean that all of the suggested changes have been made, and you may choose to look at them again if you so desire.

View - Original: Selecting this option allows you to view your document as it was prior to editing. Though the suggested changes are still there, you will not be able to see them until you enable them again.

If you need help working with Corel WordPerfect Annotations, review Working with WordPerfect Annotations (tutorial).

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Screenshots are of Microsoft Word 97,
and older or newer versions of this program may differ slightly in appearance.

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