- Turning on Track Changes in Word can prove to be non-intuitive the first time you use this feature of Microsoft Word. In order to turn on Track Changes in MS Word 2002 and 2003, select the "Tools-> Track Changes" menu option. To turn it on in MS Word 2000 and older, choose "Tools"->"Track Changes"->"Highlight Changes" and click the "Track Changes While Editing" menu check box. You can then tell if tracking changes is turned on by looking at the "TRK" text that is located in the Word status bar at the bottom of the MS Word program window. If the text is black, change-tracking is active. If it is dimmed, or greyed out, change-tracking is dormant.
- Many times, you will receive a MS Word document that has Track Changes active, but you cannot view what has been modified in the file. To turn on the display of the changes made to the document in MS Word 2002 and 2003, pick the "Final With Markup" or "Original With Markup" menu option from the Track Changes review toolbar. To display the same changes in MS Word 2000 and older variants of the program, select "Tools"->"Track Changes"->"Highlight Changes" from the menu and click the "highlight changes on screen" text box.
- If you desire to delete a change that has been made and tracked, you must reject or accept the change. In order to accept or reject a single tracked change, left-click the change and then choose the "Accept Change" menu button on the review toolbar. You can also right-click on the change, on a Windows computer, and pick the "Accept Insertion, Deletion, or Format Change" menu option. In order to accept all changes in the Word document, you must cursor over the "Accept Change" menu button. Then, choose the "Arrow" visible to the right of the menu button and pick the "Accept All Changes in Document" menu button. To reject all changes, perform the same function by cursoring over the "Reject Change" menu button.
