Track Changes function thinks I'm two people

Anonymous
2014-10-26T16:00:11+00:00

I am a copyeditor, which means I use the track changes function all the time. Since I switched to Word 2013 I've had a problem with some documents whereby after I close the document and open it again, the track changes function treats me as a new user. The problem with this is that I often go over any given bit of text several times, potentially making new changes each time, and when the system treats me as a new user, any earlier additions that I later delete show up in the margin as deleted text (rather than simply disappearing).  This is confusing for my clients, who only want to see my final changes and not the history of my train of thought. Of course, I can resolve the problem by rejecting the change instead of deleting the added text, but (a) I don't always remember to do that, and (b) this is still awkward, especially where I rewrite a given bit of text several times, making new additions and deletions each time. Can anyone advise as to how I can alert the system that when I return to a document, it should treat previous tracked changes as still active? I know there must be a way to do this because the problem only arises with some documents. I suppose there is something about the settings in the original document as it is sent to me that affects this, but for the life of me I can't figure out what that is. Thanks to anyone who can help!

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-05-10T09:37:52+00:00

    As a professional computer programmer, I think it is safe to say that simply adding a "space" to the end of a text string and treating it as new userIDs is a "boo-boo", not intentional.  If they really wanted to highlight the most recent changes, they would use the date-time stamp.

    And it is probably so low priority that it will probably never be fixed, inspite of all of the complaints we see here about it.  (I hope I am wrong about that guess ... )

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  2. Stefan Blom 352.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-05-10T23:25:01+00:00

    Stefan - I was thrown by the color switches at first, then I got used to them. Did the good people at Microsoft talk to users and conclude that we want to be able to quickly review our most recent changes? Or were they simply seduced by the possibility of introducing some new feature? Change for its own sake?

    Good questions, but I have no answers, unfortunately.

    The changed behavior isn't necessarily consistent, either.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-06-18T13:01:40+00:00

    The answer seems to be that Microsoft doesn't want to be bothered with those of us who have to deal with documents initially created by other users who may not want to update to the latest version of Word. As a copy editor, I find 2007 much easier to use than 2013, but I'm stuck with 2013 at the office. The colors in track change in 2013 are a real nuisance, usually starting with one color and then adding as the next color the one closest to it (turquoise, followed by light blue, for example)--as if the whole point of different colors wasn't to see quickly who made what change, instead of going through several paragraphs before realizing that what appears to be one color is in fact two, and having to go back through the material a second time. And the idea that when a user closes and saves a document, takes a quick break, and reopens the document (all on the same machine, with nobody else having gotten on, and certainly not changing user ID), that person will want to appear as a different color but still as the same user is ridiculous. It doesn't seem as if there's going to be any help for these problems, which take up quite a lot of time and thus cost the user (in my case, my employer) money.

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  4. Stefan Blom 352.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-06-19T00:13:24+00:00

    And the idea that when a user closes and saves a document, takes a quick break, and reopens the document (all on the same machine, with nobody else having gotten on, and certainly not changing user ID), that person will want to appear as a different color but still as the same user is ridiculous.

    Note that this is by design, and it isn't specific to Word 2013. See http://shaunakelly.com/word/sharing/howtrackchangesworks.html.

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-06-19T06:17:39+00:00

    Stefan - I assume you're referring to this: 

    Q: If Fred's revisions are shown in red on my machine, will they also be red on someone else's machine?

    "Maybe, maybe not. Don't rely on any one author's revisions being displayed in a particular colour from day to day, or from machine to machine. Word likes to be creative, and you can't control its creative urges!"

    But that's not what's happening with Word 2013. The problem that's been annoying everyone is that the SAME author's revisions can appear simultaneously in two different colors. In the older versions, yes, changes might change color from session to session - but this would be across the board for each author.

    My own problem has been resolved (thanks to Jacques), but I've continued to follow this conversation with interest!

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