Working with Corel WordPerfect Annotations

Posted November 01, 2002
PDF version

hen you review your sample or final electronic edit, your document will contain "redline markings." WordPerfect refers to these markings as "annotations," considering them to be comments added to the text, and they are a method used to edit your manuscript while still maintaining the document's original integrity.

When an editor edits a hardcopy or paper manuscript of your book, then proofreader's marks are used. These are very similar to what you will 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 Annotations 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.

Annotations 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.)

Working with Annotations

When you choose to open a WordPerfect document that has been edited using the review function, you will be prompted to choose between the following options:

Reviewer: Choosing this function will allow you to review the document as the editor. This means that any changes made to the document will appear as editorial markings.

Author: Choosing this function allows you to view the document as the author. All editorial markings will be displayed, along with the option to accept or reject the changes.

Cancel: Choosing to cancel will open your document as if the annotations had already been viewed and accepted, though this will not be the case; you will simply be unable to view the redline markings.

If your document does not prompt you, you may also access these functions by going to File >> Document and then choosing Review from the menu. You will then be prompted to choose between reviewing the document as the Author or Reviewer.

Accepting and Rejecting Changes

In order to review the corrections made to your document, you should choose to view your document as the Author. The document will then open with a new toolbar and will highlight the first occurrence of corrected text. The toolbar offers you the following options:

Other user colors: This field will display the names of those who have worked on the document, and the color that corresponds to their name. This will often be blank assuming that only one individual has edited your document.

The first icon button below the user color field allows you to display the changes, or annotations, in a normal text color. This means that you may view what the changes will look like without actually accepting them into your original document. This is useful if the annotations make your text difficult to read.

The next two icons are arrow buttons. These allow you to select the previous or next annotation. It may be useful to use this method once you have gone through your entire document to verify whether you have accepted or rejected all of the changes.

The next set of icon buttons includes the "accept" or "insert" functions. The first, which appears with a single red checkmark, enables you to insert the selected change into your original document. (Note: You must have an annotation highlighted in order to use this function.) The next, which appears with three red checkmarks, allows you to insert all of the changes into your original document. There is no need to highlight with this option; selecting this will accept all changes, incorporating additions and removing suggested deletions.

The last set of icon buttons includes the "reject" or "delete" functions. The first button (which appears as a trash can with white above it) allows you to remove the suggested change from your document. The second button (which appears as a trash can with red above it) allows you to remove all suggested changes from the document. Again, you do not need to have anything highlighted in order to do this. In short, it will return your document to its original state, prior to the edit.

You may close out of this function using the close button to the bottom right of the author toolbar.

It is always recommended that you read through your entire manuscript either during the "accepting and rejecting" process, or after you have completed this step. This is the best way to ensure that the suggested changes have been correctly made.

If you need help working with Microsoft Word Track Changes, review Working with Microsoft Word Track Changes (tutorial).

Return to Help

Screenshots are of Corel WordPerfect 9
and older or newer versions of this program may differ slightly in appearance.

©2002 integrative ink - All rights reserved
This tutorial may not be published, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.