Document Won't Accept or Reject Changes

[Becky Carter Hickman-Jones]

I have a lengthy document that has been passed around to a couple of
different people. The document was written by one person using Word XP; he
sent it to me for editing and formatting in Word XP; I sent it off to
another person (Word XP) who enabled Track Changes/Reviewing (whatever you
want to call it these days) and then made changes; she then passed it off to
two other people (unknown versions) who added their comments and
recommendations.

Now the document has returned to me for editing, and while I can turn off
track changes, because I hate it, I cannot accept or reject any of the
changes. All of the suggestions remain colored and either underlined or
struck through. On the Reviewing toolbar, I have changed the view from
Original to Final, and nothing changes in the text display. When I show
Final, all of the red and blue text is still there. When I click the forward
and backward arrows in the Reviewing toolbar, Word tells me that there are
no other changes to be reviewed when clearly they are everywhere!

I have tried saving the document in a different format and then back to Word
XP. I have tried changing the compatibility of the document (Tools >
Options). Nothing works. It's like the changes have been locked, like one
can lock a field to prevent it from being updated. I'll have to manually
edit each instance and reformat the whole document because of this.

Can anyone explain this behavior or provide a workaround? I have never seen
this happen before, but I wouldn't put it past Word to make a mess of
things!! Another reason not to use track changes!!

Thanks,
Beck

 

[Becky Carter Hickman-Jones]

Thank you, Suzanne,

It's a trying process with some people who think they're masters...even I
have to look at the manual from time to time.

I ended up doing just that with this document, and I gave a brief but
tedious lecture to the author on this topic.

Beck

 

[Mark Jerde]

It's a trying process with some people who think they're
masters...

Agreed. I got back a 200+ page doc where the other editors changed all the
autonumbered headers & paragraphs (e.g. 8.3.4.7) to their hardcoded values.

-- Mark

 

[June]

Becky, this isn't much help, but I had the same
experience with Tracking and it was on my original
document...so even with no stew of formats, I couldn't
get rid of it and finally had to call Microsoft. I know
that's not why you contacted this group, but I just
wanted to let you know that I tried the kind suggestions
given me and nothing worked, so I ended up calling. it's
a horrible program.

-----Original Message-----
I have a lengthy document that has been passed around to a couple of
different people. The document was written by one person using Word XP; he
sent it to me for editing and formatting in Word XP; I sent it off to
another person (Word XP) who enabled Track

Changes/Reviewing (whatever you

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Becky's problem is that the other users didn't actually use Track
Changes--just formatted the text with colors and underlines and other direct
formatting. So of course Word can't accept or reject (or even find) the
changes.