Tracking changes and adding comments in Word documents is an essential skill for collaboration and reviewing documents. Whether you’re working on a team project, editing a document, or reviewing someone’s work, using track changes and comments allows you to give clear, organized feedback.
In this article, we’ll walk through the steps for tracking changes and adding comments in Word, using the latest versions for Windows.
Enable Track Changes
The first step is to turn on track changes so Word will start tracking any edits made to the document. Here’s how:
- Open the Word document you want to track changes in.
- On the top toolbar, click the Review tab.
- In the Tracking section, click Track Changes. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + E.
- The Track Changes button will appear highlighted to indicate it’s now enabled.
Once track changes is enabled, any edits made will be visibly marked in the document so others can review the changes.
Customize Tracking Options
In the Track Changes section of the Review tab, there are additional options you can use to customize how changes are displayed:
- Change Tracking Options: Choose what types of changes to track, name authors, and customize how changes appear.
- Track Changes Options: Select whether to track changes for everyone or just yourself.
- Display for Review: Pick a view like Simple Markup, All Markup, or No Markup.
Add Comments in Word
In addition to tracking edits, you can add comments to make notes or ask questions without directly editing the document. Here are the steps:
- Highlight the text you want to comment on.
- On the Review tab, click New Comment.
- Type your comment in the box that pops up on the right side of the page.
- Click outside the box when you’re done to save the comment.
Comments will appear in the right margin with icons indicating where they are located in the document.
To reply to a comment, click the Reply button and type your response. Comments will be threaded to keep related discussion together.
Review Changes and Comments
Once there are lots of tracked changes and comments, you can review them in a few ways:
- Click on individual changes/comments to open a box showing the details. Accept or reject each change.
- Use the Next Change and Previous Change buttons on the Review tab to navigate through changes.
- Open the Reviewing Pane to see a list view of all changes, comments, and authors.
Compare Versions
To see a clean document version without any visible changes or comments, click Compare on the Review tab and choose Compare. This will open a side-by-side view of the edited document and original so you can clearly see how they differ.
Print or Share for Review
There are a couple options when you want to print or share a document with tracked changes for further review:
- Click File > Print.
- In the print settings, check the box for Include markup.
- Click Print.
The printed document will show tracked changes and comments.
- Click File > Share > Email.
- Under Attach File, check the box for Include markup.
- Complete the email and click Send.
The shared document will include tracked changes.
By using Word’s robust change tracking and commenting tools, you can improve collaboration on documents and make better decisions by understanding the full context from multiple reviewers. The steps covered in this article should help you get started! Let us know in the comments if you have any other questions.
