Change bars only

[Charles J. Rice]

Is there a way that I can set the track changes on a document so when it¹s
sent to a reviewer they will only see it in the way I have set track changes
options?

Writing and editing a large technical document, I would like to send
reviewers a red lined version and a clean version with the changes
incorporated but that has change bars showing. I can set the track changes
options at my end but if the reviewers have their track changes set to show
the red-lines, both files will be shown refleccting the track changes
options set on their end. (The reviewers are not Word literate enough to set
their Track Changes to just ³change bars².)

Charles

 

[Clive Huggan]

Hello Charles,

I¹m not into Track Changes, even though I develop documents with many
colleagues (I use alternative methods), but it¹s quite possible someone will
come along with a good answer.

In the absence of a solution, here¹s a thought: Would a satisfactory
solution be to make a PDF of the Word document as displayed on your Mac ­
with Track Changes showing ­ and send that, together with a totally
unmarked-up Word document?

In that event, if anyone wanted to make changes to the unmarked-up document,
they would do so, then when you got it back you would do a ³Compare
documents² routine (Tools menu => Track changes => Compare documents) to see
what they had changed, and would agree/disagree with their changes.

FWIW: One of the reasons I avoid Track Changes (but not ³Compare documents²)
is that I can¹t stand the corruptions and dropped/added spaces that occur,
especially when tables are involved. Tracked Changes also encourage people
to concentrate on the minutiae (it¹s ³control-freak paradise²) instead of
looking at the totality of the writing. For more on the corruptions, see
pages 63-64 of ³Bend Word to Your Will², some notes on the way I use Word
for the Mac, which are available as a free download from the Word MVPs'
website (http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/Bend/BendWord.htm).

The upshot is that I keep a ³master² copy of the document that doesn¹t go
through everyone else¹s computer, since all the ³Compare documents² versions
are ³Saved As² copies (i.e., not the pristine ³master²).

So I always sleep soundly at night... ;-)

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
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[Daiya Mitchell]

Not really, as far as I know. These are view settings that are set per
machine, not inherent in the doc. The only way to control them would be to
send along a macro that changed the people's settings. Usually people don't
like that--and are likely to not even open a doc that contains a macro.

Clive's PDF showing change bars plus the Word doc sounds rather good to me.

Although, changing view settings is not all that difficult for you to
explain to your reviewers. You might at least try it.