Track changes shows the wrong author

[kikilein1]

I got a Word document from someone with track changes
turned on. I have never been in the document before,
however, when I opened it it shows me as the author of
some of the changes in the document. In addition, the
other changes are from two more people who were not in
the document either - ever! Rather, all the names that
are showing up as authors are people that were working
with me on a document that is not even remotely related
to the one that shows the wrong authors. How is that
possible?

It is not pc specific nor user specific. It happens with
three other people on different machines. We are using
XP Professional, Word 2002.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Kikilein

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Kikilein

This can be a really annoying problem, and it can be tricky to track down.
But it is possible!

First, make sure you have updated your version of Office at
http://office.microsoft.com/officeupdate/default.aspx?CTT=98. I
seem to remember that some of these problems were solved by one of the
service packs for Word 2002.

Second, if your odd reviewer happens to be named Allan Stratton, then you're
a victim of an add-in for Word from Scansoft. It seems that Mr Stratton is a
(now infamous<g>) ex-employee of Scansoft. You may have acquired the add-in
when you got a scanner or printer. See
http://www.google.com.au/groups?num...ratton+reviewer+group:microsoft.public.word.*,
and follow step (b) below.

Third (and more likely) is that your strange reviewer was the reviewer of an
un-accepted tracked change in either (a) the template on which your document
was based, (b) an add-in or (c) normal.dot.

So, (a) use Tools > Templates and Add-ins to find out what template the
document is based on. Use File > Open to open that template (make sure the
blue bar at the top of Word gives the name of the template and not, say,
Document 1). And accept any changes in the template.

For (b), use Tools > Templates and Add-ins. Un-tick any add-ins listed one
by one until you find out which is the culprint.

For (c), use File > Open to open normal.dot and proceed as for (a).

Lastly, after making any of these changes, exit Word and re-start it.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[anna]

I have a similar problem. There are now 11 reviewers
showing and only 3 have ever had anything to do with this
document. Now these reviewers show up in every new
document as well.

Anyone know how I can get rid of them?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See Shauna's answer to the question.

 

[Guest]

Thank you very much for your extensive suggestions,
Kelly. Very informative.

Yes, we do have all the updates for Word 2002

Also, keep in mind that all the names that are showing up
as authors are people that were working with me on a
different document. I opened the "funky" document for
the first time and all the reviewers, including me, have
never been in the document. So the authors are not
strange. One of the authors was me, so I know .

I wonder where this information is being pulled from and
even more importantly, why are random names entered. One
idea I had was that the document might have gone through
a metadata cleaner, but why are my and my colleagues'
names in there. It should, if anything, show anonymous.

Any more clues?

Thanks again for your reply.

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi anonymous

If you are seeing reviewers' names when you create a new document by using
File > New, then it is highly likely that there are unaccepted tracked
changes in the template from which you're creating your new document.

If you are doing File > New and you are not explicitly choosing a template,
then your documents are based on normal.dot. So the unaccepted tracked
changes may be in normal.dot.

To solve the problem, use File > Open, navigate to the Templates folder,
open the template, accept all the changes and save the template.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Bob S]

I got a Word document from someone with track changes
turned on. I have never been in the document before,
however, when I opened it it shows me as the author of
some of the changes in the document. In addition, the
other changes are from two more people who were not in
the document either - ever! Rather, all the names that
are showing up as authors are people that were working
with me on a document that is not even remotely related
to the one that shows the wrong authors. How is that
possible?

It is not pc specific nor user specific. It happens with
three other people on different machines. We are using
XP Professional, Word 2002.

Although you might expect that the name of a reviewer is a document
property, Word 2002 apparently thinks that it is a window property.
That is, the list of reviewers that is presented to you is a list of
all reviewers for all currently open documents and templates. To avoid
confusion, you may need to close all but one document when dealing
with reviewer names. The word is that Word 2003 has fixed this bug.

Bob S