How to Edit a Microsoft Word Document Using Track Changes

Today, Mytour will guide you on how to use the 'Track Changes' feature in Microsoft Word to display all your edits in red ink within the document.

Open the document you wish to edit. Double-click directly on the Microsoft Word document or launch Microsoft Word and select the document from the 'Recently Opened' page. Before making any changes to the current document, consider creating a copy and editing the duplicate instead of the original. This way, you’ll have a backup in case something goes wrong.

Click on the Review tab located in the blue section at the top of the document. A new set of options related to document editing will appear.

Click on Track Changes. The option is located at the top of Word, near the center of the screen. The 'Track Changes' feature will be enabled in Microsoft Word.

Click on the dropdown menu next to Track Changes. The following options will appear:

• Simple Markup – Displays a red vertical line to the left of any added or deleted text but does not show other edits.
• All Markup – Shows all changes made to the document in red text and includes comment boxes on the left side of the page.
• No Markup – Displays changes alongside the original document without red text or comment boxes.
• Original – Shows the original document without any changes.

Click on All Markup. This option will display all edits made to the original document in red ink, while the document text remains in black.

Remove text from the document. Any content, whether it's a space or a paragraph, will disappear from the document once deleted. A red box will appear on the right side of the screen with the text "[Name] Deleted: [Writing]", where "Writing" is the text you removed.

• If you reformat the entire document (e.g., changing the font), details of the reformatting will also appear in the sidebar.

Add new text to display in red ink. Any text you insert into the document will appear in red.

• If you start a new line by pressing ↵ Enter (or ⏎ Return), a gray vertical line will appear on the left side of the screen where the new line begins.

Click on New Comment to add a comment to the highlighted text. The New Comment button, which looks like a speech bubble with a plus sign, is located near the top of the Word document. A window will open on the right side of the screen for you to enter your comment.

• You can click anywhere on the screen to save the comment after entering it.

Accept or reject edits when finished. To proceed, click Accept or Reject for the highlighted edit, or click the ▼ below Accept/Reject and select All Changes to accept/reject all edits made to the document. All Track Changes formatting (such as red text and comment boxes) will be removed.

• You can also save the document with tracked changes by skipping this step.

Save the document. To do this, hold down the Ctrl key (or ⌘ Command on Mac) and press S. The document will save the changes you made.

• Some email programs may display deleted text as black text with a red strikethrough.

• If you don’t save a copy of the original document before using Track Changes, the content of the initial document may be lost.