Track Changes

For most Microsoft Word users, documents are created for education, business or personal use. While in production these documents are rarely spoken of let alone seen by the intended audience. This isn't to suggest that shopping lists for the next jaunt to the mall and letters to dear Aunt Agnes are written in top secret seclusion. Hardly likely, it is just that most of us tap away solo on our keyboards and a document is rarely seen before the author has deemed it ready for public consumption. Documents created in the workplace however, often end up being more than just seen by colleagues. More often than not, the work environment requires that a number of individuals read and sign-off on a given document. Through the reading process the document may encounter a number of changes, some quite severe, think The Devil Wears Prada. Other changes are only mild corrections a comma becomes a semi-colon, a colon gets inserted, and gross becomes inappropriate. In either case, collaborators on a business document often like to track the changes that have taken place. This can be a very useful record to have in cases where a document might evolve dramatically from its original state.

To orchestrate the Microsoft's tracking feature Markup, simply go to the TOOLS menu and select Track Changes. You can also go the VIEW menu, then select Toolbars, and choose Reviewing. The new menu will allow several different options. You can track deletions, insertions, and revisions. Some of the changes made will appear in the text itself. Other changes will be on the left and right margins in balloons. Each person who reviews the document can have their own color so that you can track who did that, and who said what. Your document can have so many editing marks it would rival any freshman's English essay on Greek archetypes found in 20th century literature. So to put a red line through all the clashing and competing changes you can select the Show button and choose which changes will be tracked. The Show menu includes such options as insertions and deletions, formatting, balloons, a review pane, options for selecting reviewers as well as the style of each edit change. You may like inserted words to be in italic, for example. To the left of the Show menu is the window that allows you to signify the current state of the document. If the document is in its original state, you can select that and all the markups selected under Show will appear. If you don't want to track any changes while you are working you can select Final and no changes will be tracked. Essentially, the Final selection indicates you are working on the good copy or final draft so no markups will appear. This is handy if you prefer to type first then edit later. It is also useful if one person will create an original document and subsequent individuals will do the editing and revision work.

Teachers who receive work electronically find this tool empowering since it allows for editing marks to be included on the document. A teacher can write comments in the balloons and cross out items much like the procedure used on hardcopy. Unlike hardcopy, any editing, deletions, insertions or comments can be edited. So if you have written a nasty comment and later find you misjudged the work, you can change your comment without the recipient learning of your faux pas. Try doing that on paper.