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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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Thanks, Stefan.
Re sharing the document / removing sensitive information - I don't do this so have no idea.
I'll post a follow-up message here as soon as I have information to share.
Hi Stefan,
I'm having the same problem. I received a MS 97 - 2003 document from a customer that I am now editing. It's a legal contract that I need to send back to my customer, and we'll be going back and forth for many rounds to come. I spent six hours making changes yesterday, and when I closed and re-opened it (on the same PC, with the same login, within an hour or so), it now tracks my new edits as changes to the text I added earlier. It actually shows my same user name as two different individuals (and in two different colors). So, let's say I added a paragraph yesterday, and now today I want to delete it. When I delete it, it shows as struck-out text, it doesn't just disappear like I wanted it to. Saving and re-opening the document did not resolve the issue. My own items that I moved or deleted are still showing as moved or deleted. I also tried to save it as a Word 2013 document, but that didn't help either.
I have hundreds of minor modifications to make and I don't have time to go through accepting every tiny change. Ugh! I'm going crazy!
I really look forward to any insight you can provide from the MS team.
Kristin - I'm so glad somebody else has this problem (sorry that it has to be you). I did something with a recent document that seemed to fix the problem - but I'm not sure what I did that was effective, as I was trying different things (and at this point it was some time ago). I also contacted several other forums / experts and nobody had any clue.
If I figure out what I did that worked I will post it. If you figure anything out please also let us know. Thanks.
Unfortunately, I haven't heard anything on this yet.
Have you tested in a new document, after selecting "Always use these values regardless of sign in to Office" (File tab | Options | General)?