Today’s tip comes from page 13 of the 2nd edition of Editing in Word:
Turn off Track Changes when using wildcards in a find and replace.
Wildcards are the elements that tell Word to do things like:
The footnote function is one of the great features of Word: it will automatically change numbering, place them in order at the bottom of the page, shift them as pages grow and shrink, and renumber when they are moved around. The endnote function is similarly great. And even better, you can use both in one document!
However, editing footnotes and endnotes poses some challenges. Sure, Word will track changes you make to the words in the note, but it doesn’t handle other edits quite so smoothly, as shown in the demo video below.
Continue reading Editing Footnotes & EndnotesThe book and its tutorial videos go into options for seeing Tracked Changes in quite a bit of detail, so here we’ll just compare seeing changes in balloons vs seeing them inline. We’re also sticking with the defaults for colour, underlining, etc. though it’s almost all customizable. (Except for specifying which reviewer is shown in which colour; that’s impossible.)
Continue reading Track Changes Inline or in BalloonsIf all the tracked changes and comments are being shown as being made by “Author”, the document probably has been set to remove all personal data on save. This setting is sticky, so it keeps removing all data upon every save. You have to turn that off to get your name to stick.
Continue reading Stop Word from Stripping Your Name from Comments and ChangesLook on the Review ribbon. If the Track Changes button is greyed (Windows users) or the switch is green (Mac users), changes are being tracked.
Continue reading Four Ways to Tell if Track Changes Is Turned OnThere are at least two reasons you might want to have a “print” copy of the tracked changes and comments in a Word document: to distribute hard copy, or to extract the information into a memo or other use. Print is in scare quotes because this method can produce a PDF just as easily as a paper copy.
Continue reading Print Tracked Changes and CommentsBy changing the style settings of Comment text, you can make the text size bigger, make the lines double spaced, change the font, its colour, or any other attribute.
In contrast to last week’s post, there are times when you may want to reject all changes by just one reviewer. Perhaps they misunderstood the brief, or used the wrong style guide. Or perhaps they’re the dreaded “Reviewer 2.” No matter what reason you’ve got, ditching their suggestions is easy. It takes only a few clicks. Hooray!
Continue reading Reject All Changes by Reviewer 2When collaborating on a Word file, sometimes we want to (or must) accept all of one person’s suggested changes. Maybe they’re the big boss. Maybe they set all the styles in the document. Maybe, they’re the safety reviewer and their changes are essential to make sure no readers blow up; at least not because of this file.
Rather than clicking through each change, figuring out who made it, then clicking either Accept or Next, use this efficient method:
Continue reading Accept All Changes by Just One ReviewerIn the editing process, a “clean” file means it’s a manuscript ready for layout. All changes have been accepted, all comments removed, and the editing work is done. Or, maybe the file is nearly ready for layout and the team wants a version that could be ready if it suddenly must be submitted.
Good news! It just takes a couple of clicks to clean the document of all tracked changes and comments.
Continue reading Clear All Changes and Comments from a Document
