Tracking Changes:

If you want to track changes in your document, or in a different document, you have the “Track Changes” option.
You can find this option under the “Review” tab, in the ribbon.
The “Track Changes” button consists of two parts and, the upper part is a “Toggle Button”.
When we click on it, the “Track Changes” option is either turned on or off.

OFF

TO

Clicking on the downward pointing arrow at the bottom of the button displays a drop-down menu with three options.
The first option, “Track Changes”, will turn this option, on or off.
I will discuss the second option, “Change Tracking Options”, later in this lesson.
The third option opens the “Word Options” dialog box where you can change the username.
This is useful only when you work with several colleagues on the same computer and, when the name of the person entering or changing the comment will be displayed in this comment.

When the “Track Changes” option is turned on, Word starts tracking any changes we make in our document.
Some changes are marked by a check mark or, by several other symbols.
For example, when we change the formatting of text, a single vertical line is placed to the left of our document (A).
Another example is the when the old text in our document is deleted and, the new text is to be added, a vertical line is placed to the left of our document (s).

Text that is added will be highlighted in a different color.
Text that is moved gets a different color and, a cross is marked in the place where the text originally was and, a different color in the place you’ve placed it in.
Likewise, every change has its own mark.
Each marker is always a vertical line on the left of the document.

Options for tracking changes:

By default, the marks for the changes in our document are displayed in a certain way. This can be changed.
Click on the “Track Changes” button and select “Change Tracking Options.”

This opens the “Track Changes Options” dialog box.
This dialog box is divided into five sections.
The first section is “Markup”.
This controls the format and colors of “Insertions”, “Deletions” and “Changed Lines”.
Click the arrow pointing downwards, next to the boxes to change the options.
When in the “By author” option is selected in the “Color” text box, it means that this would change color depending on the author who has made the changes.
When we make changes, they will be seen only on our own computer, and there will be no difference between the different authors.
The second section is “Moves”.
This controls the format and colors of text that was moved from one position to another, in our document.
We can also change this by clicking the downward pointing arrows.
If you don’t want to track the movement of text in your document, un-check the “Track Moves” check box, by clicking on it.

The third section is “Table Cell Highlighting”.
This section is useful when we use tables in our document.
All these options seem clear.

The fourth section is “Formatting”.
This controls how the formatting changes are displayed.
The default option is “None”.
We’ll change this, but this can be confused with the actual format of the text.

The fifth section is “Balloons”.
These settings refer to our comments that appear in balloons.
These seem quite clear.

When the settings have been specified, click the OK button.

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