Track Changes lets several people edit the same document while keeping a clear record of who changed what, so nothing gets lost and nothing gets overwritten by accident. By the end of this page you will be able to turn tracking on, review changes, and leave comments for someone else to read.
When several people work on the same document - a colleague reviewing a report, a family member checking a letter - it helps to see exactly what each person changed, rather than simply receiving a document that already looks different with no explanation. Track Changes records every edit as a visible, coloured marker rather than silently altering the text.
Track Changes lives on the Review tab. The button itself is also called Track Changes, and clicking it toggles tracking on or off - when it is on, the button appears highlighted, and it is worth glancing at before you start editing someone else's document.
- Highlighted means it's switched on
- Keeps a change
- Discards a change
Try it yourself
Go to the Review tab and click Track Changes to switch it on.
From this point, every edit you make will be recorded and shown clearly, rather than simply replacing the original text.
Delete a sentence and type a new one in its place.
The deleted sentence appears with a line through it rather than vanishing, and your new sentence appears underlined in a different colour, so both versions remain visible for review.
Go to the Review tab and click Next to move to the first tracked change.
This steps through changes one at a time, which is far more manageable than trying to spot every coloured marker by eye in a long document.
Click Accept to keep a change, or Reject to discard it and restore the original text.
This is how the person reviewing the document decides, change by change, what should actually happen to the final text.
Comments work alongside Track Changes but are separate from it - a comment is a note attached to a piece of text, rather than an edit to the text itself, useful for asking a question or explaining why you changed something.
Try it yourself: comments
Select a sentence, go to the Review tab, and click New Comment.
This attaches a small note to that exact piece of text, visible in a panel down the side of the page without altering the sentence itself.
Type a question or note into the comment box and press Enter or click outside it.
The comment is now saved and will be visible to anyone else who opens the document, alongside the text it refers to.
Words people use
Track Changes and comments together make it possible for several people to work on one document honestly and clearly, each edit and note staying visible until someone actively decides what to do with it. It takes a little getting used to, but it avoids the far more confusing problem of documents changing without any record of why.
Check yourself
If you can say yes to each of these, you are ready for the next lesson.
- I can turn Track Changes on and off from the Review tab
- I can accept or reject a tracked change
- I can add a comment to a piece of text
- I know to check whether changes and comments should be cleared before sending a document on