Track changes

The REVIEW tab has tools to help you work on a document with other people. Here’s how it works.

Let’s say someone sends you a document in email and asks for your input.

First, save it to your computer.

Then, open the copy in Word.

Now, when you find something you want to comment on, what do you do?

Well, if it were paper, you might scribble something in the margins.

But with Word, you can go to the REVIEW tab and click New Comment, And then type your comment. Notice that it includes your name and the time you made it.

Comments are great because they allow you to add an idea or opinion to a document without actually changing anything.

In fact, you can hide them by clicking Show Comments.

But if you want to take a more direct approach, you can change the actual text of the document.

But before you do, click here to turn on Track Changes.

Now watch what happens when you make a change. This line appears in the margin. This is Word 2013’s new Simple Markup view.

When you click the line, you can see what changed.

And you can hold the mouse over the changes to see who made them and at what time. Click the line again to hide the changes.

The good thing about Track Changes is that it records every edit without making anything permanent.

You can move, copy, delete and insert text, change formatting, even change pictures and insert objects.

And the person who sent you the document can see the changes you made and decide whether to accept or reject them.

After you review a document, you can click the FILE tab and Save As.

Then, save it as a new file with your name added to the end of filename.

If you want to email it back to the sender, click FILE and Share. Then, click Email and Send as Attachment.

In the email form, add the sender’s email address on the To line, type a message, and click Send.

Up next, we’ll use Track changes to incorporate the revisions in the document.