Revisions Mode in Microsoft Word

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		Fri May 25 6:07 PM EDT

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Using Revisions Mode in Microsoft Word 2002 (Windows)

Getting to the Revision Tools

Depending on your settings, the Track Changes icon (circled at upper right in the illustration below) may be visible somewhere on your workspace. Note also the TRK indicator at bottom right. Here it is grayed out, meaning that tracking is disabled.
NOTE: If tracking is disabled, any changes will be made immediately and not recorded.

There are several ways to enable tracking:

If the Track Changes icon (circled at top right, above) is displayed in a toolbar, single-click on it.
Type Ctrl+Shift+E.
Double-click on the TRK indicator in the status bar (circled at lower right, above).
Right-click on the TRK indicator, then select Track Changes:

Right-click on the TRK indicator, then select Track Changes:

From the main menu, select Tools / Track Changes:

The Reviewing toolbar window will appear; the Track Changes icon (if displayed) will be outlined by a blue square; and the TRK indicator will appear black, meaning that tracking is enabled.
NOTE: If tracking is enabled, all changes will be recorded, whether they are displayed or not.

The Reviewing toolbar window can float free, or you can dock it by dragging it up to the toolbar area:

(For the remainder of this tutorial, the Reviewing toolbar window will float free.)

Display Choices

Below is an original document with many errors. The errors have been corrected by an editor, but the changes are not displayed because the view picklist in the Reviewing toolbar is set to Original.

Below is the same document, displayed with all the editor's changes because the view picklist is set to Final:

With the view picklist set to Final Showing Markup, all the changes are visible:

Print Layout View

The illustrations above have shown Word's Normal View. If you view the document in Print Layout view, revisions will be displayed differently. To switch to Print Layout view, click the Print Layout icon (if displayed), or select View / Print Layout from the main menu:

In Print Layout view, revisions will display beside the main text.
If Final Showing Markup is selected from the display picklist in the Reviewing toolbar, deleted items will be displayed:

If Original Showing Markup is selected from the display picklist in the Reviewing toolbar, inserted items will be displayed:

(For the remainder of this tutorial, we will illustrate Word's Normal View.)

Accepting or Rejecting Changes

Starting at the beginning of the document, click on the Next icon (right arrow) in the Reviewing toolbar. The first change will be highlighted.

If you are satisfied with the proposed change, click on the Accept Change icon (checkmark) in the Reviewing toolbar. The change will be made. If you are not satisfied with the proposed change, click on the Reject Change icon (x mark). Then click on the Next icon again, accept or reject the change, and so on through the rest of the document.

Alternately, you can read through the document and decide to accept all changes (this is the quickest approach, and makes sense if you trust your editor or are accepting your own changes). In that case, click on the down-arrow next to the Accept Change icon to open the Accept Change picklist, then select Accept All Changes in Document.

More Information

Clicking on the Previewing Pane icon (up arrow) will split the screen, showing each change, who made it, and when. Multiple reviewers can make changes to a document. In addition to their names being displayed in the Previewing Pane, their changes will appear in different colors.

Buttoning up

Once you are done accepting revisions, save your document. The text is now ready to be pasted into a page with Dreamweaver or forwarded to the appropriate person for posting on the Web.

For more, see Microsoft Word Help.

[Tracking in Word 2000] [Web Editor's Main Page]

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