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
    2014-10-27T08:49:49+00:00

    Thanks, Stefan. I'm going out of town for a couple of days, so I'll check this when I get back.

    It does occur to me that I slightly misrepresented the problem. The system treats me as a different user at first (with a new color for my new edits), but as I go along and hit 'save', the color changes to the color of the old edits. So when I wrote 'Track changes function thinks I'm two people', that's not quite accurate. It's more that for some documents, the track changes function tracks my own editing history. I.e., it recognizes that I'm the same user (because ultimately it puts all my changes in the same color), but it still treats old changes as set somehow, so that deleting my old additions makes them show up as deletions. 

    As I said, I'll check what happens now that I've ticked that box when I return on Wednesday. Thanks.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-11-10T09:32:05+00:00

    Hi again Stefan,

    I've been working on other projects and just got back to the one I was having trouble with.... and it seems that ticking the box for 'Always use these values regardless of sign-in to Office' does not fix the problem. So I'm still at a loss as to what to do.

    As I said before, I slightly misrepresented the problem in my original post. The system treats me as a different user at first (with a new color for my new edits), but as I go along and hit 'save', the color changes to the color of the old edits. So when I wrote 'Track changes function thinks I'm two people', that's not quite accurate. It's more that for some documents, the track changes function tracks my own editing history. I.e., it recognizes that I'm the same user (because ultimately it puts all my changes in the same color), but it still treats old changes as set somehow, so that deleting my old additions makes them show up as deletions. 

    If you have any new ideas I'd be glad to hear them!

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  3. Stefan Blom 352.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2014-11-12T08:28:10+00:00

    This is certainly strange. Since the problem fixes itself on save, what happens the next time you open and edit that same document? Is it working as expected, or do you see the same behavior once again?

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-11-12T08:37:37+00:00

    The problem doesn't fix itself on save - only the color changes. So if the changes showed up in red the first time, they might show up in blue after I close and reopen the document - but then on 'save' the changes in blue turn red. Nonetheless, the system still treats my old tracked changes as if they came from another user (or more accurately, it's as if the system thinks I want to retain a record of my own changes).

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  5. Stefan Blom 352.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2014-11-12T23:57:59+00:00

    I'll pass this along to the product group/Office team and see if anyone can explain what is going on.

    Are you allowed to share the document (remove any sensitive information first)?

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