the MOST

Track Changes is a great feature in Microsoft Word that can be really helpful in editing and collaborating.  When you use Track Changes, any changes made to the document by you, or another person, will be marked.  Reviewers can also add comments.  All changes can later be accepted or rejected, and comments can later be deleted.

One not so great thing about Track Changes is that it’s easy to accidentally send a document to someone else, not realizing that the changes and comments were still in the document.  A coworker sent me a great, very funny,  example of a business proposal gone very wrong thanks to poorly managed tracked changes.  Read Rick Segal’s blog post about this business plan (this post does contain one word of profanity, but you can read a summary post that does not contain profanity).

Don’t want this to happen to you?  I found a great demo video on Microsoft’s web site that explains how to use Track Changes, and how to make sure you don’t send out a document containing tracked changes and comments.  Have a look!  Here’s another demo explaining how to remove tracked changes.

For those of you using Word 2003, most of the tools used in the demos can be found on the Reviewing toolbar.  You can bring it up by going to View > Toolbars > Reviewing.