Track Changes and Comments in Microsoft Word
What this handout is about
This handout will teach you how to use Microsoft Word's Track Changes and Comments features in order to edit or comment on your own or someone else's draft. Please note that this handout is best viewed online, not in printed form. Some of the images that illustrate how the Track Changes and Comments features work may not appear in printed copies of the handout.
Introduction
If you've taken English Composition courses at UNC or visited the Writing Center, you've learned the value of having other people read drafts of your papers. Readers' observations, suggestions, and questions can help you refine how you've organized, argued, and worded what you've written. Chances are you're already using Microsoft Word to draft, revise, and edit your papers. Word also has a feature that allows you to revise your papers or someone else's without changing the original document. Not only can you open up someone else's file, read it, and easily make changes and notes throughout the file, but you can also comment on your own drafts to let readers know what particular concerns you have, to guide them in their reading. The author of the document can review your changes and/or comments, then accept or reject them. Track Changes is used increasingly in composition courses to display a trail of revisions that you make to your own document. The instructor can then see how much you have revised the paper between drafts. This handout will discuss Track Changes and Comments independently of each other, though they are often used in concert.
Track Changes
It's best to practice Track Changes on a completed document rather than one you are still writing. There are several ways to initiate Track Changes. The easiest is to open a sample document and right-click on the grey box labeled trk at the bottom of the page. 
After right-clicking, choose Track Changes. You have now initiated the Track Changes feature. You'll see that a new toolbar, called the Reviewing toolbar, has appeared at the top of the document:
Note the highlighted button that is second from the right. As long as this button is highlighted, all changes will be displayed in the Track Changes view.
Accepting or Rejecting Changes
If someone made changes to your essay, Track Changes will appear on your computer when you open the document. The print version looks just like the screen version, with the vertical lines on the left and the boxes on the right with the changed information. To get rid of the markup notes, you must first reject or accept the changes. To do this, look at the Reviewing toolbar:
The buttons to the left of the Accept Change button allow you to navigate to particular changes. If one of your peers made the changes to your document in Track Changes, click on the change and evaluate whether you agree with the suggestion or not. If you agree, then click Accept Change. If you do not agree, click Reject Change. Choosing either option will remove the Track Changes formatting, and the change will be permanently incorporated into your draft or permanently removed.
Note the drop down box on the left side of the reviewing toolbar. Your options in this box are: Final Showing Markup, Final, Original Showing Markup, and Original.
You can change the way you view the original document and the changes that you or your reviewer made to the document. For example, if you made changes to your own draft but want to keep a record of revisions, you can switch the view from Final Showing Markup to Final before sending the document to your instructor or peers. Changing the view allows you or your reader to see the document with the changes made and independent of any Track Changes formatting, but the changes are not yet permanent. To make them permanent, you need to accept or reject them.
Comments
The Comments feature functions much like Track Changes. The difference is that Comments is used to insert information without overwriting the original text. You can use Comments to ask the author questions or indicate an area that is unclear to you. To insert comments in a document, make sure the Reviewing toolbar is at the top of your document.
Select the text that you want to highlight with your mouse (it could be a word, a sentence, or a paragraph). Then, click the Comments button (the button that looks like a yellow sticky note). The selected text will become highlighted and a text box will open to the right of the document. If you use Comments a lot, you can use the shortcut for the Insert Comments command: ctrl+alt+m.
Inserting Your Name and Initials into Comments
Notice that "WC" prefaces every comment box in this document. That's because I set Word's user information to display those initials. You, too, can set the user options on Word:
- Go to Tools on the menu bar. Select Options.
- The Options dialog box appears. Click on the User Information tab near the top of the box to display that option.
- Fill in your full name and initials in the appropriate boxes. You can also fill in your e-mail address in the address box, if you want.
- Then click OK. Now, every time that you insert a comment, your initials will appear in the text box next to the line and your full name will appear when you hover your mouse over the comment.
Editing and Deleting Comments
You can edit a comment that you have made by simply clicking on the text box on the right and changing the text. You can also apply formatting (bold, italic, etc.) to the comments if you want.
If someone made comments on your draft, you can add a response to the original comments by selecting the highlighted text and clicking the Comments button on the toolbar. A new Comments box will appear, to which you can then add comments.
To delete a comment, click somewhere in the highlighted area or comment box. Then click the right mouse button to get a shortcut menu. You can then choose Delete Comment, and all traces of the comment will vanish.
Reviewing Pane
You can also view Track Changes and Comments by turning on the reviewing pane:
If you turn on the reviewing pane, a new window will appear at the bottom of the document that contains only the changes or comments added to the document. Clicking on a change or comment will take you directly to that change or comment in the document.
If you want to learn more …
Check out Microsoft's help page on Track Changes:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP052416341033.aspx
