So I sent out a draft document for comment last week. I asked all the recipients if they knew how to “track changes” on Word, all said yes.
Turns out they were all lying. Here are there interpretations:
one made changes, but didn’t mark them in any way
one inserted text and hilighted it
one effectively used Word’s “track changes” function for insertions, but instead of deleting things he used strikethrough, so when I “accepted all changes” there was a bunch of struckthrough text left in the doc
one made creative use of red text, underlining and strikethrough to make it appear exactly as if Word’s “track changes” function was used - but it wasn’t
So, the purpose of this OP is partly to vent my frustration, and partly to poll: how dumb are my co-workers? Was I wrong to assume that “track changes” is a function that most admin assistants and policy writers should know?
Specifically (directed towards people who are ever asked to edit documents in Word): if I asked you to edit a document and track your changes, would you know that I was referring to a specific function in Word that you could use with a single click of a button?
I know what it is, but that’s because my wife is a writer who has complained about the same thing.
If you asked me if I knew how to “track changes” in word, I would probably ask you for clarification, thinking that I would use one or another of the ideas used above (but certainly not the one who went through all the effort of making my stuff looking exactly like the track changes function).
PErhaps next time you might say “do you all know how to use the TRACK CHANGES TOOL in MS Word?”
With your luck, though, you just work with a bunch of dipshits, and this won’t help you either.
Cowgirl, I’m an admin, and I know how to track changes - however, Crazy Joe is correct - it probably should have been worded “Do you know how to use the tool” versus just track changes. I can see where that could have meant different things to different people.
Granted, he probably did do something wrong, but I’ve had that very thing happen in a document that a coworker and I were collaborating on (and I KNOW we both know how to track changes!). When I’d tracked mine and sent the revised doc to her, it did the same thing when she tried to accept them. Terribly frustrating, and we never figured out what happened.
I’m one of the people that manually bolds stuff green and red, puts strikethoughs, and uses freeform drawing objects to “track revisions”. Either that, or I print it out and leave a penciled up copy in your in-basket.
Hmm. It is quite possible that it is not my co-workers (or at least, that one in particular) who is an idiot, but MS Word. That is an obvious possibility that I had not thought of.
It just amazes me that so many people don’t know about this, the single most useful function of the program. There is so very much that I hate about Word, but the track-changes function nearly - nearly! - makes it okay.
Nearly.
GargoyleWB, on the bottom of the Word window, close to the middle, you will see a row of greyed-out options - REC TRK EXT OVR. In an existing document, click “TRK.” Now make some changes to your document and watch what happens.
You (or someone else) can right-click on the changes to accept or reject them.
A new toolbar will appear (“Reviewing”) that you can use to accept or reject changes, skip to the next change, and accept all changes (as well as other neat stuff).
If you forward your tracked doc to someone else, they can do the same thing and it will make the changes a different colour! wow.
Actually, people in my office are expressly forbidden from using MS Track Changes. It interferes in some way with our blacklining/redlining program and has a history of random issues (such as those described above).
Well, yes. Of course - though usually “track changes” ends up being “changes tracked and liberal use made of the comment feature because I need to over-explain everything that isn’t correcting a misspelled word” But that can all also be undone fairly simply (by clicking the comments and deleting them.
Why would someone not use the real track changes tool? That just doesn’t make sense. It’s both harder to do and to undo.
So, that’s how you use it. Seriously, I have been using Word (and WordPerfect) for many years, and have never used this tool, even though I vaguely knew that something of the sort existed.
Of course, most of my word processing consists of memos or documents that I work on by myself. I’ve never been in a “team editing” situation, so that’s probably why I’ve never needed it.
You know, now that I fire up word, I realize I have always seen those things for years on the footer but have never know what they’ve done. In fact, my brain had made up “mystery commands” relating to those very items, just so that my mind wasn’t constantly distracted by them and could safely ignore them.
I now know what the RECommend, TuRnKey, EXTinguish, and OVipaRous functions do I’m kind of let down on the real-world operation however.
Next time, could you protect the document for tracked changes before you send it out? Odds are that if a person doesn’t know how to use tracked changes, they probably won’t know/won’t go to the trouble of turning off tracked changes if they’re on in the document already by default.
Yeah, “track changes” are bad for legal documents, because (IIRC), even if you “accept all changes”, if you send the same version to someone else (like, say, opposing counsel), they can see all your editing just by turning “track changes” back on.
This is an issue when making changes to statutes, regulations, or legislative bills. Proposed changes are incorporated into existing laws/regs by showing the old text, stricken through, and then new text added, underlined. But the document itself – the proposed changed law or regulation – MUST show both the old text (stricken through) and the new text (underlined); that is the “final” version of the proposed new law/regulation (prior to adoption). You can’t use “track changes” to do this, because if you (or another user) accepts or declines the “proposed changes,” the document is ruined.
This happened in our office several times. We had a heck of a time explaining to our legislative analyst folks why this seemingly handy tool can’t be used for proposed legislation.
Wow. I learned something new today and I wasn’t even expecting it!
So many times I’ve been asked to help review a friend’s paper, and so many times I’ve changed the font to red and made my changes that way. Too bad I’m finishing the school part of my life this summer and probably will never have need of this feature again. I would have enjoyed it.
Oh, what the hell, I’ll go open up an old document and change it just for fun. Anything to avoid studying…
I’m kind of let down on the real-world operation however.