Track Changes to Documents

Quick reference

• 00:03 So far in this section we've seen how to share files with colleagues and
• 00:07 how we can make changes together by co-authoring.
• 00:10 And in the last lesson we were talking specifically about how we can add comments
• 00:15 to a document.
• 00:16 Now, in this lesson I'd like to walk you through how we can track changes.
• 00:22 Now, track changes may or
• 00:23 may not be something that you're already familiar with.
• 00:26 And track changes are really helpful, particularly if there are lots of people
• 00:30 working on a document and making different changes to that document.
• 00:34 What track changes allow us to do is assign a color to every person who's
• 00:38 editing the document, and we can see by color if they've deleted anything,
• 00:43 if they've inserted anything, or if they've moved anything around.
• 00:48 Now you'll find your track changes option on the Review ribbon.
• 00:51 Notice here we have a section on comments.
• 00:54 And again, we can toggle our comments between the pain and
• 00:57 the floating bubble simply by clicking the Show Comments button just here.
• 01:02 And the next group that we have is all related to track changes.
• 01:06 Now, by default, Track Changes are not turned on.
• 01:10 And that means that when we're in this document we can start typing, and
• 01:14 the document isn't marked up when we add things to the document.
• 01:18 As soon as we turn on Track Cchanges, that situation changes.
• 01:22 So let's click the drop-down next to Track Changes.
• 01:25 You can see currently we don't have them on.
• 01:28 But I can choose to turn Track Changes on for everybody,
• 01:31 which means that it's going to track the changes of everybody who
• 01:35 has access to this document, or I can just track my own changes.
• 01:39 So let's turn it on for everybody.
• 01:42 So now, if I go into this document and make some changes, so
• 01:46 maybe I want to delete out this crazy word just here, let's press Delete.
• 01:52 Instead of deleting it, it marks up the document, and
• 01:55 deletions are highlighted in red with a strikethrough.
• 02:00 If I was to insert some tags, again, I'm just going to insert some junk text.
• 02:04 This time insertions are showing in red, but
• 02:07 we have an underline as opposed to a strikethrough.
• 02:11 What about if I was to move an entire paragraph?
• 02:13 So let's select this paragraph.
• 02:15 I'm going to do Ctrl+X to cut this.
• 02:18 Notice what's happened because this is effectively a deletion.
• 02:22 And then I'm going to Ctrl+V to paste it down here and
• 02:25 this will show as an insertion.
• 02:27 And if I hover over the last thing that I did, you can see I get a little
• 02:32 floating pop up box that tells me that I deleted an entire paragraph.
• 02:37 And if I click on this deletion just here,
• 02:41 you can see it says who has made this deletion and it shows the deleted text.
• 02:46 So let's see what happens when Adele starts to make some changes to this
• 02:50 document.
• 02:51 Check out what happens.
• 02:52 So Adele has made some changes to this document.
• 02:55 She's deleted that first line, and
• 02:57 she's also added a piece of text a little bit further down, so that is an insertion.
• 03:03 And you can see that the changes that Adele has made have been marked
• 03:07 up in a blue font to distinguish them from my own.
• 03:10 And if we had a third or fourth person who was reviewing this document,
• 03:13 those authors would show in different colors as well.
• 03:16 Now currently we're viewing this document in markup view.
• 03:21 How do I know that?
• 03:22 Well, if we go over to our ribbon, notice here we have markup on page, All Markup.
• 03:28 So it's showing me all of the changes that are being made in this document.
• 03:32 I could choose to show the markup in the margin, and
• 03:36 this is what we refer to as simple markup.
• 03:38 So if I do that,
• 03:39 notice that all of the changes disappear from the actual document, but I can
• 03:44 still see by ways of this red line which paragraphs have had changes made to them.
• 03:49 And a quick way to toggle between those two different views is to
• 03:53 simply click on this red line.
• 03:55 That will show the track changes.
• 03:57 Click on the line again and it will hide those track changes.
• 04:01 Now the final point to make here when it comes to managing your track changes is
• 04:05 how we can go through and accept or reject those changes.
• 04:08 So a lot of the time when people are making changes to a document, the person
• 04:13 who has the final say on the final version of the document would probably go through,
• 04:18 review all of the changes that have been submitted by the different authors, and
• 04:22 then accept or reject those changes.
• 04:25 So for this first change at the top here that Adele has made,
• 04:29 this is something that she's deleted out.
• 04:32 Now, I'm going to say that we need to leave this in.
• 04:35 So I'm going to reject the deletion that she's made.
• 04:38 So all I need to do here is click, and I can choose to accept or
• 04:42 reject the suggestion.
• 04:43 So I'm going to reject it,
• 04:45 which is going to remove those track changes from that piece of text.
• 04:49 What about if we go further down the document to the other
• 04:52 change that Adele made?
• 04:54 Well, this is pretty good.
• 04:55 I want to keep this.
• 04:56 So I'm going to accept the insertion that she's made here.
• 05:00 Now, aside from clicking on the change to accept or reject,
• 05:04 we can utilize the options on the Review ribbon.
• 05:08 So if we go over to our Track Changes area,
• 05:11 notice this one here is to accept, the one next to it is to reject.
• 05:17 So let's click on Accept, and that change has been accepted into the document.
• 05:22 So that's how Track Changes work.
• 05:24 As I said, they are brilliant for
• 05:26 tracking multiple amendments by multiple people to a single document.

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