Full transcript
Introduction to Track Changes in Microsoft Word
0:00Have you ever wondered how Track Changes works in Microsoft Word?
0:03I am Chris Menard.
0:04I'm a Microsoft Certified Trainer and public speaker.
0:08Let me show you how track changes works right now.
0:15I have the sample Word document running that you can download
0:18from the description down below.
Turning On Track Changes
0:19To turn on Track Changes, you want to go to the Review tab at the top.
0:24When you select the Review tab, you have a Tracking group and
0:28that is where Track Changes sits.
0:30Next to the Tracking group is the Markup group, and next to
0:33Markup is the Comments group.
0:36I consider all three of these groups part of Track Changes, and you need
0:40to know how to use all three of them.
0:42I'm going to look at them in this short video right now.
0:45To turn on Track Changes, just simply come and turn on Track
0:49Changes, or you can do Ctrl+Shift+E.
0:52I am using a Microsoft 365 account, so I'm in Word for 365.
0:58If you don't have this Copilot summary, just ignore that, please.
1:03When I turned on Track Changes, two things happened.
1:06One, it now has a gray background, so if I click it again, it's back to white.
1:11Click it again, it's turned on, it's gray.
1:14The second thing that happened, though, is since I'm using M365 in
1:18the top right hand corner, next to the word Share, it says Reviewing.
1:23If I turn off Track Changes, it goes to Editing.
1:27So you can also turn on Track Changes by clicking the drop down
1:30for Editing and selecting Reviewing.
1:33Track changes is on.
Understanding Track Changes Features
1:35Now, listed on the screen are the five items that Track Changes handles.
1:43Item number one, it handles insertions, that is put in any text or objects.
1:49Item number two is deletions, deleting texts or objects.
1:53Item number three, formatting changes.
1:57This would be any font sizes, font types, colors, bold, italics.
2:03Anything like that is a formatting change.
2:06Item number four is comments.
2:09Adding comments to your document.
2:11And the fifth item that track changes covers is moved content.
2:17You move text or you move an object from one place in your document to another.
2:22That is a Track Change.
2:24Let's now look at a few different Track Changes.
Working with Insertions and Deletions
2:26Let's start off with some insertions and deletions.
2:30I'm here.
2:31I don't like the word great.
2:32You can look, you can drag over it, but Chris Menard tip, just
2:36double click a word to select it.
2:38I'm going to press the Delete key.
2:40I am deleting the word.
2:41Great.
2:42If you notice over to the far left of my name is this little line.
2:47You can click this and notice it.
2:49It'll say hide tracked changes.
Exploring Markup Options
2:51Before I click it in the Markup group, All Markup is selected.
2:56There's going to be four options here.
2:57We'll look at all four.
2:58So if I do click this, it goes from All Markup to Simple Markup.
3:03Click it again.
3:04It's back to all.
3:06I could also just use it right here.
3:08Just so you know, right there, how this works all versus simple right there.
3:13I'm going to add a word.
3:15So I made that corporate event.
3:17There's an addition or an insertion.
3:19I'm going to make this bold when I select bold.
3:22Over to the far right.
Using Balloons for Revisions
3:23That is called a Balloon.
3:25That is not a comment.
3:26I haven't done a comment yet.
3:28That is called a Balloon.
3:29I'll discuss Balloons.
3:30Let's do one more.
3:32I'm going to select right here.
3:35Oh, before I do this, I'm going to make these bullets.
3:38Notice that that Markup line is increasing right there.
3:43Let's go to make these bullets and there you go.
3:45There is a second Balloon telling you what I did here.
3:49Concerning images, since I haven't done anything, I'm gonna click
3:52at the bottom of the document.
3:53I'm just gonna quickly insert an image I have stored locally.
3:57So Insert Picture.
3:59There is an image on the screen right there.
4:01Now, back to the Review tab.
4:03One important note before I continue.
4:06We turned on track changes and we made changes so they all got incorporated.
4:11If you turn off Track Changes, The changes that you use while
4:16Track Changes was turned on stay, which is great, by the way.
4:19You don't want them getting deleted or removed, but I will
4:22turn Track Changes back on.
4:24On our Markup options right here, we've looked at All.
4:28Let's go back to Simple.
4:30Simple Markup keeps all the changes you should have, but it's showing
4:33you that you did do changes.
4:35We also have No Markup, the line is missing, and finally we can go
4:40back to our original right here.
4:43I'm going to go back to All Markup, that is where I'm usually
4:46at with track changes turned on.
4:48Concerning Show Markup, please make sure you do these first two, these
4:53should always be checked in my opinion.
4:55Concerning these Balloons I have over to the right, we have
4:58three options for our Balloons.
5:00Show revisions in balloons right there, go back to balloons in line,
5:08which I don't care for, but I have, but you can use if you want to.
5:13I like this last one here Showing Formatting in Balloons.
5:17It is a matter of preference what you do with the balloons right here.
Managing Multiple Users and Reviewing Pane
5:21If you are, if multiple people are accessing this document,
5:24I don't care if you're sharing it with OneDrive, SharePoint,
5:28maybe you're emailing it around.
5:30Maybe you have a document management system.
5:33If multiple people are in here, you would see the names of the other
5:36people and you can specify whose track changes you want to look at right here.
5:40The Reviewing pane, this is really simple.
5:42By default, it'll show up in two different places when you click it,
5:46wherever you leave it is where it'll last show up and you're saying, well,
5:49Chris, it showed up over in the far left.
5:51You could put it horizontally and it'll show up at the bottom.
5:55I do like the vertical.
5:57Click it to turn it on and off.
5:59Interesting that it's called the Reviewing pane when you click it, but when the
6:02task pane appears, it's called Revisions.
6:05It is showing you all the items that I did in this document.
6:09You can also move this if you still want to see it vertically, but want to move
6:12it over maybe to the right hand side, you could move it, you can resize it, and
6:16you can close it, you can also close it with the X, that is your Reviewing pane.
6:22I have not done any comments yet, so even though show comments is turned on,
6:27just to prove this, I've turned show comments off, back on, back off, my
6:32balloons are still sitting here because this is part of the track changes.
6:36I haven't done any comments yet.
6:38Let's just go ahead and turn it on though.
6:41Before I do comments, let's look at accepting and rejecting our track changes.
Accepting and Rejecting Changes
6:47I've got four different commands, Accept, Reject, Previous, and Next.
6:53Whatever you do, if you are sharing a file with multiple people and track
6:57changes is turned on, I encourage you to never, ever click Accept All Changes.
7:04You want to make sure you proofread the document.
7:08Now, if this file is just mine.
7:11I've seen it a million times.
7:12This is the one time I could say, Hey, accept all changes or even
7:17accept all changes and stop tracking.
7:19I'm going to do it.
7:21I did it for one reason.
7:23Undo still works in case you ever do that.
7:25Just so you know that same thing with Reject, reject all
7:29changes, Undo still works.
7:32Now, this is what I do in real life.
7:36The default is to accept and move to the next, so you don't have to
7:40click on Accept and move to the next.
7:42Before I do this, I'm going to click all the way at the top of the document.
7:45If you just want to see the changes, forget about Accept and Reject, use Next.
7:51It jumped to great, click it again, it jumped to corporate.
7:54It's showing me I bolded that.
7:56So there is Previous and Next right there just to see what changes were made.
8:02Now it's time to Accept and Reject.
8:05I'm going to click on Accept.
8:08It actually went to the word great.
8:10So it's showing me the first change.
8:12And actually, I'm going to accept that I deleted the word great.
8:16So I'm going to accept it.
8:17The word great is gone.
8:18I do want corporate in there.
8:20I'm going to accept that one.
8:21I made that bold.
8:22I'm making this up.
8:23I don't like it.
8:24So I'm going to reject the change.
8:27It moves down to the bullets.
8:28I like the bullets.
8:29I'm going to accept.
8:30And finally, adding an image or an object is a change, and
8:35I'm going to reject this one.
8:36I don't like that graphic on the screen.
8:39Word pops up.
8:41There aren't any tracked changes in your document.
8:43I click on OK.
8:45An important note, Track Changes is still turned on and it still says Reviewing
8:50up in the top right corner for me.
8:52So if I start typing again, Track Changes is running.
8:56I wanted to turn them off, I could turn them off and now I could continue to work
8:59in this document without Track Changes.
Adding and Managing Comments
9:01Let's take a look at comments real quick for our comments.
9:05I'm going to highlight YouTube channel and I'm going to hit new comment.
9:10There is a comment over there.
9:12Great feature for M365.
9:14I can mention someone.
9:16So let's just say that I am sharing this document with Carol Wilson.
9:20If I do an @ there are people in my organization.
9:24I have blurred out all the email addresses, but they're okay
9:28with me showing their images.
9:30There's Carol.
9:30I could assign something to Carol by checking this box right here.
9:35She will get notified.
9:37But for right now, I'm going to keep this simple and I'm just going to say,
9:41mention the number of videos, possibly.
9:45And I'm going to click on that and there is a comment.
9:49People can come in here and like it.
9:51I can come in here and edit the comment.
9:53I can delete the thread.
9:55Many options here.
9:57So, once your comments are done, let me just add one more.
10:01Comments can be replied to.
10:04So you can have a running thread here.
10:06And then if you want to add and delete comments, we've already added
10:09comments, show comments on or off.
10:12And then finally, previous and next, just like the Track Changes, it
10:17jumps from the Previous to the Next.
10:19And you can delete all comments or you can run them one at a time and delete them.