Track Changes in Word 2003

Track Changes, as the term suggests, is a feature in Microsoft Word that helps keep track of the revisions made to a document. This feature is commonly used when two or more users work on the same document or when a document passes through a review cycle.

Let us assume that you work on a document in Microsoft Word and forward it to your peers for review. The reviewers would turn on the ‘Track Changes’ feature and then make changes to the document, if any. This will help you to know the suggestions made by the reviewers. This article outlines some of the features relating to Word 2003. Click here for Word 2007

1. You can enable ‘Track Changes’ by selecting from the Word menu, Tools > Track Changes. Notice that a toolbar with all the ‘Track Changes’ functions are displayed. This toolbar is called the ‘Reviewing’ toolbar.
2. You can set-up the colors for insertions, deletions, or commenting. Select Tools > Options from the menu and open the ‘Track Changes’ tabbed region to define the colors.
3. It is important to ensure that before a document is circulated in its Final form, no track changes markup is there. All the suggestions made during the review or editing cycle should have been accepted or rejected. If one is working on a large document, how to ensure this? Here are the steps:
   • Select Tools > Options from the menu
   • Open the ‘Security’ tabbed region
   • Select ‘Warn before printing, saving, or sending a file that contains tracked changes or comments’ checkbox
4. Use the ‘Reviewing’ toolbar to review, accept, or reject the changes
   • The ‘Next’ and the ‘Previous’ arrows in the ‘Reviewing’ toolbar will help you to browse through the changes in a document
   • As you review each suggested change, use the ‘Accept Change’ and ‘Reject Change/Delete Comment’ icons in the ‘Reviewing’ toolbar to either accept or reject a change
5. You can also print a list of the changes made to a document. Select File > Print from the menu and select ‘List of markup’ in the ‘Print What’ field. This will print only the changes suggested in a document.
6. You may choose to have the ‘Tracked Changes’ displayed either as ‘Balloons’ or ‘inline’. Select Tools > Options from the menu. Open the ‘Track Changes’ tabbed region and define the options in the ‘Balloons’ region.

Related posts:

1. Track Changes in Word 2007
2. Warn before saving, printing a Word 2010 document with track changes
3. Track Changes in OpenOffice Impress
4. Track Change Feature PowerPoint 2007