This may be the issue that breaks me and sends me back to Word 2000.
I rely on the ‘old’ comments pane. I access it by running a simple macro:
Selection.Comments.Add Range:=Selection.Range.
It’s cleaner than the main review pane. Less wasted white space. And most importantly, it only displays comments. So I work in draft view[sup]*[/sup], with a simple toggle to display/hide additions and deletions, highlights on comment locations, and the old pane open at the bottom so I can read, edit, and add comments as necessary.
Except in Word 2013, there’s a problem. It no longer highlights text when I select it in the comment pane. Whether I select via the mouse or shift-cursor, the text is selected (I can copy, cut, delete, overwrite, etc.), but I have no visual feedback as to what text I’ve selected.
I am going insane.
Can anyone help get the highlighting back? Barring that, can is there any way to recreate my usual workflow? Can I get the ‘new’ review pane to display ONLY comments—while the main body displays additions and deletions? (I can toggle them under ‘show comments’, but that affects both the screen and the pane). Because it undocks, I’d love to use the new pane, but can’t if it’s going to show adds/deletions when they’re visible onscreen.
[sup]* Why draft view? Because I usually work on 150+ page documents with charts, graphs and lots of tracked changes and comments. When I toggle view changes (which I have to do often to compare old/new versions), the page that is displayed on the monitor in print layout mode jumps wildly, whereas it pretty much stays put in draft mode. [/sup]
~Monday morning bump~
Bueller? … Bueller? …
I can only use Word by stripping it back to the leanest possible tool. I’m still on… 2008, I think. No, 2010. My day-in, day-out use is in draft mode, navigation and footnote panels open.
I’ve never thought much of its multi-user review/comment features. The Mrs is eyebrow deep in a multiauthor paper that just came back from a nitpicking master of the rev/com system and it’s a horrid tangle of red, blue, purple and a faint mosaic of original black and white.
FWIW, I’ve only updated my working copy when absolutely necessary - the last time being to gain access to .docx without a converter. But I’ll stay with this version until something pretty strong forces me to change. (My last version was 2003, I think, and I used 97 until around 2005 or so.) I don’t regard Word as a general-purpose tool - I have better ones for nearly everything it thinks it can do, but I still find the stripped and hotrodded version the best tool for, well, word processing.
ETA: Sorry, left off the point. My biggest objection to Word’s many features is that they are fragile and frangible. When you stray into things like the comment and review tools, it’s absurdly easy to break a document so badly you have to rebuild it. Or make a global “accept” or “reject” change that can’t be undone. Or lose highlighting…
I haven’t found a solution (in Word 2010) for the reviewing pane configuration issue (although you can highlight comment locations). I think Word 2013 allows what you’re looking for, though.
Not a big help, I know.
Especially when the OP is using Word 2013. 
On top of my other dislikes, MS seems to be somewhere between random and capricious about changing features between releases - no good reason, no improvement, no removal because there’s another option… just change for change’s sake. Even in details that must take some considerable effort to change.