Word 2011 always opens with Final Showing Markup view

Anonymous
2011-07-13T21:11:04+00:00

EVERY SINGLE TIME I open a document created with Mac Word 2011 I get the Final Showing Markup version.  I don't WANT to see all the changes.  But no matter how many times I try to save the document with Tracking set to Final and/or the Show Markup categories unchecked, it still opens the next time with all the stupid changes showing in red—Tracking set to Final Showing Markup and every Show Markup category checked.  (Tracking is turned OFF, so I can't even see why it's keeping that information.)

And there is no way in Preferences to set this, either.  Just "how do you want the changes to look?", not "do you even want to see the @#$% stupid changes in the first place?"  !!!!!!!!!!!

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2011-07-13T21:27:25+00:00

You've got to Accept or Reject All changes ... that's the only way they disappear.

Keep Tracked Changes turned off and if you do need to see "what's different" between two versions of the same document, investigate the Compare Document feature.

Hope this helps

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-05-01T17:35:32+00:00

    I had the same problem with disabled Track Changes and Accept/Reject changes controls. Definitely a bug in Word, and it seems to occur with pre-Mac2011 Word docs. Thanks for your workaround, Rich. It doesn't solve all the problems-- most of the formatting and graphics are nuked when copying the content into a blank doc-- but at least the annoying tracking issue is gone, and I didn't lose any text. Still, I have to reformat and reimport 100+ pages worth of images and graphics. I hope Microsoft is addressing this tracking problem, because it's a big issue.

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  2. Jim G 134.1K Reputation points MVP
    2015-04-19T03:03:47+00:00

    Follow these instructions to unhide the hidden Library folder:

    http://osxdaily.com/2014/12/16/show-user-library-folder-os-x-yosemite/

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-04-18T20:54:24+00:00

    Concerning the following [delete all tracked changes]:

    1. Open Word and use File > Open
    2. From your Home directory folder navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/Normal.dotm
    3. I CAN'T FIND ~/library [etc.]

    Thanks in advance

    1. With this template now open as a file, go to the Review tab and turn Tracked Changes off.
    2. Type and delete something on the blank page, which resets Word's save trigger for the file
    3. Save and close the file
    4. Quit Word completely
    5. Reopen Word and hopefully all is now okay

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-03-26T13:08:12+00:00

    I gave up trying to figure out a solution in the settings. I simply copy and paste the final version without markups into a new Word document and save it. 

    The anomaly is clearly a software bug in WORD FOR MAC 2011 and its lack of compatibility with prior versions of WORD.  Your suggestion to simply copy and paste the FINAL version (i.e., the anomaly version with MARKUPS set to off (unchecked), and, FINAL VERSION set to ON -- available options from the REVIEW tab after accepting all changes, one by one) saved me hours of rework.  Thank you!!!  I gained further success going forward by changing SETTINGS on the REVIEW TAB to: (a) select NONE for every option in the Markup category (Insertions, Deletions, Changed Lines, Formatting) and (b) uncheck the choices for the Balloon category.

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